Delicate Psyche
by fictionalcandie
Summary: For once, Harry Potter was normal. Completely, utterly, undoubtedly normal. He wasn't doing anything odd. Nothing extraordinary was happening because of him. He was bloody NORMAL. And then, he breathed again. AU as of HBP.
1. A Beginning

**A Beginning**

'This is ridiculous.'

The words repeated themselves in the dark stillness of the littlest bedroom in Number 4, Privet Drive. Or they seemed to, at any rate. In reality, it was only Harry Potter, playing back in his mind what he'd just said.

Annoyed, he threw the Quidditch book he'd been reading at the door of his closet, but then thought better of it while the book was still in the air, and regretted the temperamental move. Not that he expected anything to come of it, save him feeling worse over the small dent which was sure to appear, and the scolding he'd get for it when his Aunt, Uncle and cousin returned the following week.

Only, something did happen. Whether it was because of him or not, Harry wasn't sure.

The book stopped moving. It didn't hit anything, merely stopped. Just like that, in midair. As if being grabbed by an unseen hand.

Harry blinked.

'What?' Harry asked the room. He was staring at the book, trying to figure out what he'd just seen happen.

He'd only just come to the conclusion that he must either be imagining things, or else he was doing wandless magic again -- which _was not _a good thing -- when he heard the front door open.

This would not have been all that significant, to an almost hermit such as Harry, except that he'd _heard the front door open_. It was past midnight on a weekday, and his relatives were all away, vacationing with Aunt Marge in far off Majorca.

He was immediately suspicious. And he had a right to be.

He'd heard nothing from any one in the magical world since he'd returned from his fifth year at Hogwarts almost a month ago. Which was exceptionally funny, given that he hadn't even owled the Order -- Hedwig had disappeared on the second day back -- and they'd sworn to come check on him if he didn't owl regularly. It reminded him of the summer after his first year far too much for comfort.

And now there was someone else in the house.

Harry stood up, the cuffs of his over-large pajama pants brushing the floor. Quietly, he made his way out into the hall. He didn't realise it, but his wand had somehow traveled from the top of his trunk all the way across the room into his hand in a matter of milliseconds.

There was no sign of anything out of the ordinary in the upstairs hall, and Harry started for the steps. He moved slowly and cautiously, making as little noise as possible. Skillfully, he even avoided the few stairs that creaked. For some reason, he seemed to be unusually acclimated to the darkness, and at one point even forgot it was actually not broad daylight. But that was only for a brief moment and he didn't notice it anyway.

The front hall was empty, the door standing... closed? Harry hadn't heard it being shut. Grimly, he turned a stony face toward the kitchen and proceeded with his inspection.

A light was on in the kitchen. Harry could see the thin strip of light, shining out through the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.

There was a heavy feeling in his chest, almost like fear. Except he knew, instinctively, that no matter what was in there -- if anything was -- he didn't have to be afraid of it.

With his left hand, Harry slowly pushed the kitchen door open and pointed his wand into the only illuminated place in the house, his heart beating in his ears. The room was empty.

Except for the spindly old man sitting at the table and twirling a long piece of polished wood in his fingers.

Harry's own fingers, slippery with sweat, almost dropped his wand at the sight of the old man. 'Who are you?' he demanded.

The old man smiled, his aged and wrinkled face creasing further. His bald head shone under the electric lighting of the Muggle kitchen. 'I? Why, I am nobody... That you would know, anyway.'

'I know more than people think I do,' Harry countered, feeling as if he was lying even as he said it.

'That you do,' agreed the man with a nod. His darkly blue eyes twinkled as he noticed Harry's disbelieving expression. 'I've been watching you, young Harry.'

'What?' said Harry, blinking in surprise.

'Oh yes.' The man set down his wand and leaned back in his chair. 'My eye's been on you for years. You showed extraordinary potential even as a baby.' He laughed softly. 'Albus always did love to make his mistakes in large numbers all at once.'

Completely lost, Harry could do nothing but stare. This man spoke of Dumbledore like a fool.

'No, not a fool.'

Harry frowned. 'What?'

The man laughed again. 'I said, I don't think Albus is a fool. But I know him for what he is, and that's a wizard, not a god or a saint.'

'Oh.' To say that Harry was confused would have been an understatement. He really had absolutely no idea who the man in front of him was or what he was doing there.

'Well?' prompted the stranger patiently. 'Aren't you wondering why I've shown up in your Aunt's kitchen at two-forty-four on the morning of your sixteenth birthday?'

'Er.' Harry frowned -- what could one say to a question like that? 'Yes, I guess I am.'

'Excellent,' said the man, his eyes twinkling even more. 'Let's go.'

'Excuse me?'

The man smiled again, pleased. 'I find that strictly verbal explanations can be somewhat lacking in conviction. I'd like to be able to show you what I'm talking about as I'm talking. But I can't do that right now. So, we have to go.'

Harry wasn't about to just leave the Dursleys' with someone he didn't know, much less trust, but the lack of communication from the Order was weighing heavily on his mind, especially since his desertion by his "family."

In short, Harry Potter was going stir-crazy. And this man seemed safe enough. An excellent excuse to get out a bit. Except...

'If you've been watching me,' Harry, said sharply, 'then you should know I'm not leaving this house with a stranger. Even one who looks a bit like Dumbledore.' This was true; the man did bare a passing resemblance to the Headmaster of Hogwarts.

For some reason, his words drew another smile to the man's face. As Harry watched, he steepled his fingers and nodded. 'Indeed, little man,' - Harry was sure it would be useless to point out that he was bigger than the stranger - 'I have been watching you, and did know this. At this point in time, though, I'm not asking you to leave the house with me. However, I _would _like the opportunity to prove my good intentions and how, er, safe you'd be were you to come with me.'

After this, the old man didn't move at all, even to blink his eyes, which were staring intently at Harry. The piercing gaze was almost as unnerving as Dumbledore's, and Harry found himself distinctly uncomfortable under it. An unanswered question rose in the unnatural purple depths. The answer, something seemed to assure Harry, lay somewhere within him.

Harry could feel himself being drawn into the stare from the stranger. Could feel the message the man was sending him. Could feel the way the man expertly wrapped the thought around his own, hiding them from him.

Could feel himself being persuaded.

He tried to rationalise it as not actually _agreeing _to what the man wanted, just giving him a chance to try and convince him to agree. Yes, Harry tried very hard.

Not to his own surprise, but certainly to the man's, he failed after a great deal of mental wrestling.

Having seen that the stranger's wand was on the table several inches from his steepled fingers, Harry judged it safe to make a huge mistake. Operating on the lack of hostility coming from the man, Harry Potter lowered his wand.

That move made him the headlines for the next day, and the rest of the week, and the week after that as well, probably. Front page news was nothing to this. This was the stuff of legends.

All from one little movement.

Harry nodded back at the stranger. 'All right then.'

**o.o.o.o**

_(flashback)_

_Sirius ducked Bellatrix's jet of red light, laughing at her. 'Come on, you can do better than that!' he yelled, his voice echoing around the cavernous room. He didn't care that the others were there, that she wasn't the only person they were supposed to be fighting; he'd always loved taunting her._

_Adrenaline was flooding his veins, he hadn't felt this alive in ages. He paused for the barest fraction of a second, taking a deep breath. It was great to be out of that house, to be doing something, to be fighting, to be --_

_He felt Bellatrix's next curse hit him squarely in his chest._

_His laughter was dying on his lips and his eyes flew wide in surprise -- he'd let his guard down; he'd been hit; he could feel himself starting to fall._

_Sirius could see smug triumph on Bellatrix's face. He looked away, toward the people around him. Was that Harry, jumping down those stairs? And Dumbledore over there, and... Why were they looking at him like that? He'd been hit, he wasn't dead, he was just... falling... slowly..._

_Falling... Wait, where was he? Wasn't he... Oh no. No. He wasn't, he couldn't be -- Merlin, don't let him be -- not the Veil. Fear lanced through his mind, gripping at his heart._

_It was taking him an age to fall. Everything he could see was happening in slow motion. Harry was still coming, his face showing something dreadful... desperation, almost. There was Dumbledore, and those others... No! Don't look, not at them. Not them -- Sirius had to find _**him****He**_ would be in there somewhere, Sirius could trust _**his**_ facial expression to show whether -- there he was._

_Remus was standing a little way away, between the dais and the stairs Harry was on. His face was frozen, wide-eyed and stark white. He appeared numb with shock._

_Sirius sought Remus's eyes. He knew he was falling, had know already. But now he knew where. The Veil. He was falling. God and Merlin, he was falling._

_He was sure, then, that the Veil was behind him. He knew that no one came back from the Veil. He knew what was happening._

_He was dying._

_'No!' Remus seemed to cry out, though he said nothing. Sirius wanted to scream. Sirius needed to scream, had to, because that expression on his friend's beloved face was too horrible, unbearable. But he couldn't scream; there wasn't time even for him to do that much._

_He felt the cloth of the Veil brush his back. It was harshly rough, even through his robes, and so icy cold it burnt his skin._

_He had to do something. He couldn't leave like this. Couldn't desert Harry. And Remus... hadn't _**he**_ lost enough already? Merlin, Remus! No! Not like that... he couldn't leave like that... He grasped for _**something**_ he could do, some sign he could give to Remus, to do... anything, really, so that he wasn't being abandoned by another friend, again. _

_Sirius curled his lips, and mouthed 'Moony' as the Veil fell around his head. Just before it flapped closed over him, he saw a strangely heartening flash in Remus's eyes answer him._

_And then the Veil and the dark and the voices had him._

_(/flashback)_

The world surrounding Sirius was dark and the air murky, filled with thick, swirling grey fog -- at least, he thought it was fog. He got just a glance around, before he hit the hard, cold, greyish ground with a loud, echoing thud. That's when he realised that there was an eerie singing that had only just stopped. And also that it was coming from two pale, spectral women.

One of them, the closer, looked vaguely familiar to Sirius. Through the dull, ugly greyness that seemed to cover everything, he could just make out a glimmering pinkness -- a pale shadow of her flaming red hair.

'Sirius?' the shade-lady asked despairingly, her voice low, whispery and filled with a dreadful rasp that set the hairs on Sirius's neck standing. Incredulous, Sirius looked up into the dead, washed out eyes of his best mate's wife.

And saw something he didn't expect. It was the same thing he figured Wormtail had seen when faced with him, two years ago. A desire to kill.

The other shade-lady didn't give him a chance to fully realise that the cold crawling in his stomach was fear, before she started cackling. 'Fleshie! We've got a fleshie!' And then she turned away, shooting off much faster than any human, screaming "Fleshie!" like a banshee. Sirius got the unsettling feeling that it was just about the same thing as if she'd set of a warning alarm. Only... worse, for him.

'You can't be here!' the Lily-shade cried, as she moved closer to Sirius. She was still speaking in that croaky excuse for a voice which gave Sirius shivers. Though her words were distraught, she appeared delighted with his presence.

Every little bit of the way she was walking toward him, almost a stalk, and the way her lip was curling, and the way she was looking at him, gave him the distinct impression that she viewed him as the little yellow canary snack for her predatory self. Sirius couldn't remember ever having been so freaked out in his life.

'Um... What's going... Lily?' Sirius managed, trying to sit up. With the look the woman in front of him was giving him, he didn't feel very comfortable sprawled on his back. He doubted he would have felt comfortable with that look under any circumstances. 'You're... Lily...'

He tried to go on, but when he said her name, something flickered in her eyes, and she stopped moving. He didn't dare speak again. Her voice was almost as he remembered it when she said, 'No. Sirius. Go back. You have to go back. Now, Sirius!'

Confused, he glanced over to the spot that he'd come through. To where the Veil was.

Only it wasn't. Instead of the Veil, there was a thin pane of nothing hanging in the air, shimmering slightly.

'I... I can't go back!'

The grey was coming back into Lily's eyes again. Sirius could hear the other shade-woman screaming somewhere in the background, intermingled with a different scream, repeating over and over and seeming to come from the world Sirius had just left. He couldn't make it out.

'You have to. You cannot stay here,' she said, halfway between a scary rasp and her normal self.

The fog at the edges of Sirius's vision was beginning to swirl rather ominously. It bunched in places, moving as if to form figures, and then hurrying away, leaving those figures behind it. More shades were coming. "Fleshie!" seemed to have become an echoing chant.

But the dull scream from the world of the living could be understood now. It was... Harry's voice? 'SIRIUS!'

When Lily heard it, she turned away from the near-frantic but paralyzed Sirius, to stare with longing, brilliant emerald green eyes at the entrance to Death. She appeared to be... breathing. Heavily. 'That voice,' she demanded, all but restored to her normal, living appearance, except that she still looked like she was made out of air. 'Who is that?'

'I... I think it might be... Harry,' said Sirius, just as the first of the other shadow people reached them. Sirius didn't notice the effect that name had on Lily.

'Fleshie! There has not been a fleshie here for years!' crowed a withered old man in 13th century robes, from the front of the crowd. He was giving Sirius a very, very unnerving stare.

'Fleshie?' Sirius hazarded softly, trying to look at all of the shades at once. The blood in his veins seemed to have been replaced by fear, with how cold it ran.

A little girl, not more than five, slithered her shadow body around to behind Sirius. She cackled and reached out one pale finger to trace the back of his neck softly. 'Yes, fleshie...'

'This is the land of the dead, Sirius,' a new voice, less dead than most of the others said, as a tall, surprisingly solid looking male came forward. He sent Sirius a sad little smile, laced with the hunger and bloodlust shared by the other shades. For some reason, Sirius's fear increased, though he didn't understand why -- he'd never been scared of his brother before. 'You aren't dead. That makes you a fleshie here.'

'Do you know what we do to fleshies, pretty man?' the little girl whispered, leaning in so that her small mouth was almost touching his ear. He shuddered, disturbed by the breath he didn't feel when she spoke. The crowd gave a collective, grotesque, high-pitched laugh.

'Sirius.' The voice was soft, almost-living, and very gentle. He turned his head to look at Lily, from whom it originated. 'Sirius, listen to me. I need your help. You must go back, you must. My son...'

Sirius wished he could cry, but he dreaded doing that in front of these... creepy dead people. 'Harry's fine, Lily. Remus --'

Green flooded into Lily's eyes, and colour to the rest of her face. Kneeling next to him, she brought up her hand to stroke the side of Sirius's face. He recoiled instinctively, but her touch was loving, and not so ice cold as that of the child. Sirius could almost, _almost _believe that she was alive. 'Say it again, Sirius. You have to go back. I need you to.'

'Get away from him!' shrieked Regulus, glaring furiously at Lily. 'Relations, you know, have --'

'Shut up, Regulus,' ordered someone else, a fat woman in a hideous evening dress. 'You've had more than your share, because of that rule. I think I'd like this one to myself...' Several other, equally sickening statements from different shades echoed this remark.

'Say what?' Sirius asked quietly, wishing above anything to keep Lily the way she was, the one creature who wasn't looking at him like a piece of meat in a butcher's window. He got the feeling that what she was doing was strictly not allowed.

'His name,' she breathed, the colour she'd gained starting to fade almost immediately. 'I can't help you without it.'

Feeling more lost than he had even when he'd been stuck with a Dementor practically in his mind during his stay in Azkaban, Sirius frowned at her, but spoke anyway. 'Remus. Why shou --'

Grey swam in her eyes and over her face. 'No!' she rasped in a shout, 'Wrong name!'

Like a wand being lit inside his head, Sirius realised what was going on, and that realisation gave him a faint glimmer of hope. It wasn't much, but it was enough to wrap around his heart and shield it from the stalking figures of the shadows that were currently looming over him. 'Harry!' he said fervently, smiling as life, almost, rushed back into Lily. 'HARRY!'

The shouts from the other side of the Veil suddenly reached a peak, and just as Sirius screamed Harry's name, Harry was screaming his.

Lily smiled in relief and bent her head to rest it against Sirius's chest. Her arms went around him in the embrace of an old friend. From somewhere behind him came a vicious hiss. Something, something large and strong and furious, wrenched Lily away and tossed her toward the pane of nothing. Regulus loomed over Sirius, his eyes filled with rage.

'No!' screamed the little old wizard, frowning at Lily. 'Keep her away!'

'Fleshie!' the little girl screamed, apparently in agreement.

Sirius's hope was starting to fade like the colour from Lily's face. It was being replaced by horror and resignation. 'Harry...' he whispered sadly, looking down at the grey ground. He didn't hear when Lily whispered it feebly back at him.

'You've all waited too long!' a tall, stately female shade declared, breaking away from the crowd and marching purposefully toward Sirius. 'I don't intend to waste _this _one!'

'Nooo!'

A dark grey blur burst through the fat shade in the evening dress, tumbling to a skidding halt directly between Sirius and the other shade. Sirius looked up at it quickly, shocked to find what he did.

It was James Potter -- or, at least, used to be James Potter. Now it was only a fragile, wispy shadow of him. But either way, it was another familiar face to Sirius. And Sirius got the impression that this one wasn't all that in to fleshies, either.

'What do you think you're doing?' snapped the woman, her grey face contorted in anger. 'Move aside!'

'No,' repeated James, standing as firmly as almost-fog could. 'I won't let you, not to him.'

Sirius didn't try to hide it when the tear leaked out. Somehow, having James in front of him, knowing that he didn't need any spoken names to bring him back, made Sirius feel a _lot _safer.

'You... won't _let _us?' sputtered Regulus, trying to push past James and get at Sirius. 'That's the most ridiculous --'

Silently, James put a hand on his chest and pushed him backwards. For a moment, Regulus and the woman behind him meshed together in a mass of shadow, then they reformed, and toppled to the ground.

James's voice was firm, and warm. 'Yes. Won't let you. You're not getting him.'

The hairs on the back of Sirius's neck rose, and he whipped his head around to see the little girl, grinning toothily at him. Her hands were up, prepared to snake around his neck. Then Lily's hand appeared, and tried to slap the girl's away. She received a hiss and a snarl for her trouble.

'Sirius.' It was James again, speaking very quietly but clearly. 'You have to fight back. Not even having a shadow on your side can help you unless you're willing to do something for yourself.'

'But...' Sirius felt helpless, with the gazes of so many things upon him. 'There's nothing I can do!' The little girl laughed in his ear.

'Pretty man... but so silly.'

His disgust -- at having let himself get hit by Bellatrix's curse, at being stupid enough to fall through the Veil, at the proceedings since, at everything -- suddenly seemed more than he could take, and he had to get it out. 'Get away from me!' He threw up his hands and batted at the girl.

She didn't fall away, as he'd expected her to. His hand passed through her.

Everything seemed to stop.

'I hate that,' cursed the spindly old man, shaking his head. Little bits of it were falling away, dissolving into vapor. That was when Sirius noticed that everyone but Lily and James were disappearing.

'What's going on?' Sirius asked of James, bemused. James only beamed at him, starting to fade as well.

He couldn't have that.

'No! What are you doing? You can't go! Stop!' he cried, frantic again. He dove toward James, trying grab hold of him and keep him from leaving. But you can't hold mist and you can't cling to fog, it just doesn't work. James passed through his fingers like the little girl had. 'James! Prongs! Don't leave me!'

'We have to, Sirius,' Lily whispered. 'You've vanished us when you vanished the others. You've won, don't you see. We can't all stay together, not yet...'

'But... but... I want to!' he protested, realising after he said it that he meant it.

'No,' James snapped. 'I gave you a responsibility in my son, Padfoot. Get your arse out there and fulfill it.'

Lily smiled. 'All you have to do is find your way out.'

And then they were both gone.

And Sirius was alone.

In the mist and the fog.

And he had no clue what he was supposed to do.


	2. Word At Last

**Author's Note: **Just to clarify before it starts, this chapter is intended to be disconnected/less than completely rational in respect to characters and events. However, there's also intended to be a great deal of truth in it, which I think I've managed. Heh. Don't forget to review and let me know what you think. (And no, I do not, in fact, have a beta. Poor me.)

**o.o.o.o**

**Word At Last**

'Mum!' screamed Ron, dropping the newspaper he'd just taken from the delivery owl. 'Mum! Dad!' Ginny, who'd been reading the news article over Ron's shoulder, backed away from him with a horrified expression on her face.

'That's not possible. It's a bunch of lies,' she murmured, her hand over her mouth. 'It has to be.'

Ron wasn't listening, as he dashed through the living room into the kitchen, frantically searching for one of his parents. 'Dad! Fred, George!

'Anyone!'

Molly and Arthur were at the Ministry, however, as Ron remembered when he saw his twin brothers rushing down the stairs looking worried. His parents had gone in quite early that morning in response to an urgent but brief summons from Cornelius Fudge, of all people.

'What's wrong, Ron? What is it?' George demanded instantly, staring at his little brother.

'Harry! It's Harry!' was the nearly hysterical reply.

Fred gave George a "twins only" sort of look. 'What about Harry, though?'

Ginny had followed Ron, carrying the _Daily Prophet _he'd dropped. Without a word, she passed it to them and they leaned over to read it together.

'Shit,' they said in unison, obviously appalled, the paper dropping to the floor before finishing the article. It had yet to be read all the way through, by any of them, but that hardly mattered, really.

Nearly in tears, Ginny nodded mutely. Hesitantly, Ron walked over and put an arm around her shoulders. They both knew it was as much for him as her; his eyes were still too wide, the pupils dilated unnaturally, and his face too pale, the freckles standing out starkly against the whiteness.

He tried to give the others a weak smile, having calmed slightly in order to comfort his sister. 'A bunch of lies, remember?'

Ginny glanced around at the three boys, meeting each of their eyes in turn, and asked quietly, 'But -- Merlin! -- what if... it isn't?'

'How can it be?' Fred asked, trying to be logical. His voice wavered just slightly in the middle, however. Nobody answered at first. 'Harry couldn't be... How could it _be_?'

Finally, Ron said what they were all thinking, pushing Ginny to tears. 'Easily. Very, very easily. Too easily.'

Two loud pops close by broke the anxious silence. The four teenagers whipped around to face the cause of the sounds. It was their parents, looking harassed and grief-stricken.

'Get your things,' Molly instructed curtly. Arthur, searching their faces, sighed sadly.

'They know already,' he whispered to his wife. Ron heard him, though.

'NO!'

Looking close to tears herself, his mother enveloped Ron in a crushing hug. He did not resist, staring past Molly into Ginny's equally upset eyes. 'No, no, no...' he repeated softly, protesting that which he couldn't change but wanted to anyway.

'Is it really true then, Dad?' the Twins were questioning Arthur in undertones. 'Is it like it says in the Prophet?' He nodded slowly, resignedly.

'Yes.'

Ginny shook her head firmly, characteristically obstinate. 'But Dumbledore promised! It can't be true, I won't believe it!'

Releasing Ron, who had mumbled something in agreement, Molly looked up sternly. 'Believe it or not, Ginny, it's true and we're just going to have to... have to move on.' She sniffed. 'Right. Your things, go and fetch them. The Order's holding an emergency meeting and we're to stay there till... till Albus comes up with something better.' She pointed toward the stairs. Ginny went with a petulant and troubled frown, the tear tracks on her face still visible. George, Fred, and Ron trailed close behind.

In a scarce few minutes all six of them were ready for an unplanned trip to Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Not surprising, given how much they'd all practiced for just such an incident. They'd never expected, though, for it to be under quite so drastic of conditions.

A few words muttered by Arthur over an old tea pot created the Portkey to whisk them away. And a single farewell glance was all that was needed to read that day's disturbing headline in the _Daily Prophet_. Then the Weasley family vanished from the Burrow.

**o.o.o.o**

**BODY OF BOY-WHO-LIVED FOUND:  
DECLARED DEAD BY ST. MUNGO'S MEDI-WIZARDS!**

_At precisely 6:58 AM on this, his sixteenth birthday, after almost three hours of extensive testing by the most brilliant living minds in medicine, the Boy-Who-Lived was confirmed to be dead._

_This morning, a squad of Aurors broke into Number 4 Privet Drive, the home of Harry Potter's relatives and at which he was staying, with orders to arrest him under charges of underage magic (the same charges which he had to attend a hearing for just last year) and use of outlawed spells._

_This last came as quite a surprise to this reporter, who wasn't even aware that the spells Mr. Potter had been accused of existed. Apparently, neither were most Ministry officials -- certain out-of-date spell detectors got quite a dusting when they went off at 3:00 AM, to the shock of the on-duty attendant. 'I know each beep and buzz and whir of those little beauties as if by my own heart,' claims Sally Fitzimmons, night witch at the Improper Use of Magic Office for nearly eight years, in connection to the delicate magical instruments used in the detection of inappropriate magic. She goes on, 'And just as usual when I heard them things going off in the next room (I was in the hall for a cuppa, see) I thought, sure I know what that is, but then this other noise, foreign-like, comes out with the others. And Emily (that's Emily Lowenburg, she's the witch in the next room) who was standing with me says to me I'd best be getting back in and checking them. And I does, and they're all nice and quiet and normal, except this one way in the back corner, where I don't even go unless I can help it, which is rattling and clicking and carrying on something awful. I had to check the label just to tell what it was for, dirty old thing!'_

_But the Aurors seemed to know what was going on well enough. They started in the bedroom known to be inhabited by Mr. Potter, but found it empty of boy or wand -- which they had been instructed to confiscate on sight -- and almost all else. According to the one Auror this reporter could get to comment, it was at this point that they began to suspect something was seriously amiss. It was not until they'd reached the small kitchen, which they searched last -- everywhere else was empty, as his relatives the Dursley family were on vacation -- that the squad stumbled upon the unbelievable truth._

_Harry Potter, miraculous survivor of the dreaded Killing Curse by the hand of He Who Must Not Be Named himself, was lying next to the empty table, the only upset chair tumbled over near his feet; he didn't appear to be breathing. He was transported with all haste to St. Mungo's, where expert healers were called, in an attempt to revive the famous boy. Unfortunately, not even the best were good enough -- or early enough, in this case -- to save the young hero._

_Whereabouts of his wand, which is said by some to be a brother to that of You-Know-Who, are unknown. The Auror this reporter spoke with, Armandeus Fiddleburr, insists that it was not on the premises at all, and they've yet to locate it. Now, thinks this reporter, how does a smart young lad known for getting himself out of deadly scraps at wand-point, go about losing his wand while completely alone in a house with no visible amount of protection whatsoever? Could this be foul play we're smelling?_

_The official cause of death, suspected by this reporter to be the very curse Mr. Potter escaped as an infant, has not yet been released by the Ministry. Some are saying that not even the Minister for Magic himself knows for sure what it was that killed the lad. Could such a thing really be allowed to occur, this reporter wonders?_

_Note: At the request of Albus Dumbledore, the body of Harry Potter shall be turned over to the family of Harry's school friends Ronald and Ginevra Weasley for safekeeping until the funeral, which, he has informed this reporter, will be a private gathering, though he does promise that a public memorial will also be held at a later time. The dates for both have not yet been released. Look for them in the Daily Prophet at every opportunity -- trust the Prophet for the fastest, the best coverage of all the news-making events which matter to you._

_**Article by Daily Prophet staff writer Theodore Throumann.**_

**o.o.o.o**

Mad-eye Moody was waiting for them when the Weasleys arrived at the Order Headquarters, as was Albus Dumbledore. They both looked somber, Dumbledore more so than Ron and Ginny had ever seen him. The dull murmur of voices could be heard coming into the hall from the kitchen.

'Arthur, Molly,' Moody said, nodding in greeting. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley only nodded in return. Together, the adults all started for the kitchen door.

The teens noticed their exclusion, and Ron exchanged a glance of anger with the Twins. They were going to protest, but Ginny hushed them. From up ahead came the lowered voice of Dumbledore, laden heavily with sorrow.

'... we've put him in here for now, yes. As you know, the funeral...'

Then the door closed behind them, leaving the hall as close to silent as it was before. Ron had gone very, very pale once more.

'Did you hear that?' he croaked more than said. 'They've got his... body... here. Harry...'

Ginny and the Twins couldn't think of anything to say to that, but they were spared answering by a muffled wail which had just come from the kitchen. The door may have been closed, but they all heard the words quite clearly, and easily identified the person uttering them as their mother.

'Harry! Harry, poor, dear boy! Why, those awful Muggles -- I ought to -- oh! Harry... you were... as good as mine! And now you've...'

From there it just dissolved into sobs.

The Twins and Ginny stared at the door in horror. Ron looked as if he were going to be ill, and his legs had given out, leaving him kneeling on the floor. 'They've put him in the _kitchen_?' he moaned, as if the very idea gave him the shakes -- and indeed, it seemed to. Fred and George, having no answer, could only shake their heads in grieved bewilderment.

Moving a step away from them all, Ginny raised her hands to cover her mouth. 'I... I can't stay down here!' she cried, her eyes welling up. She ran for the stairs, taking them several at a time.

A few seconds later, when they registered what she'd done, her brothers hastened after her, abandoning the luggage in the front hall of 12 Grimmauld Place for their parents to take care of later.


	3. Party of One

**Disclaimer:** Er, yeah, forgot one of these before. But Harry Potter and all things related do not belong to me, and I really don't want to get sued. Thank you?

**Author's Notes:** I'd like to take a moment to thank all of my (four) reviewers. And also, to ask everyone that reads this to please review. I do so love reviews. They make my world a little brighter... But anyway. Thanks for reading, please don't hurt me (though, flames are okay), and enjoy this chapter. Mandi, the last sentence is only there because I love you so much. :D On with the story now.

**o.o.o.o**

**Party of One**

In the days following their arrival at 12 Grimmauld Place, Ron and Ginny learned very little more about Harry's demise; apparently, the newspaper had for once released all the information, and done so accurately. They did, however, get to see Harry's body, small comfort that it was.

It was several hours after they'd first arrived, and the four youngest Weasleys were sitting at the foot of the steps, staring at the kitchen door. They were waiting for it to open, as it hadn't since their parents had entered the room. Except once, when Tonks had shown up, late because she had to give her report on the Auror mission to her superior at the Ministry. They'd all been upstairs, looking for Ginny -- she was crying on the bed in Harry and Ron's room -- and wouldn't have noticed at all, except Tonks somehow set off the portrait of Mrs. Black. The Order members had swarmed from the kitchen en masse, and all but attacked the painting, which had subsided into quiet with remarkable speed. But after that, they'd retreated to the kitchen, taking with them a sniffling Tonks on Charlie's arm, and had yet to come out again.

'What time is it now?' asked Ron at length, sitting on the bottom step with his feet propped on the wall and his arms resting over his knees.

The Twins were on the floor, Fred sitting with his back to the wall and legs running parallel with the last step, George lying next to him with his legs in the air up against the wall. His ankles were crossed, as were Fred's, and in any other circumstances, the picture they made would have been humourous. George checked Fred's watch, ignoring his own. 'Half-nine, three minutes.'

Ron sighed and nodded dismally. 'One minute since I last asked.'

On the step above Ron, sitting cross-legged, Ginny sighed as well. Her voice was strained and sad as she spoke. 'Five and a half hours since we got here. Almost five since Tonks did. Two and a quarter since we heard Lupin scream. And eighteen since Harry... I think I'm going to shut up.'

'Your times are off,' murmured George absently.

'What are they _doing _in there?' demanded Fred crossly. 'And why aren't George and I allowed in, too?' They'd asked, of course, when Tonks had first shown up. It was Dumbledore who refused them, even though Mrs. Weasley had looked about to.

'Forget that,' Ron said, dropping his forehead to his folded arms wearily. 'I just want to know when they're coming _out_.'

'Yeah,' agreed Ginny in a rather listless tone. 'Knowing that would be nice.'

'Mmhm.' Fred titled his head back and closed his eyes, pasting a dreamy expression on his face. 'I want dinner. Food. A -- what is it, George?' He looked down at his twin, who was frantically slapping at Fred's leg.

In answer to his question, George pointed at the kitchen door. From behind it could be heard the noises of chairs scraping and people talking. But what the noises were was unimportant to the four teens, all that mattered was that there _were _noises -- the Silencing Charm, which hadn't even been strong enough to hold in the terrifying scream of their former professor, had been lifted. They scrambled to their feet, Ginny leaning over the banister to see better, and Ron stepping down from the stair. All their eyes were trained on the door.

A few moments later, it opened, and Professor Dumbledore emerged. Behind him came the rest of the Order. Some of them faltered when they saw Ron, but others, like Severus Snape, just kept on walking toward the door without so much as a pause. Dumbledore, Molly, Arthur, Bill, Charlie, Tonks, Remus and Mundungus Fletcher just stopped altogether.

'Well?' demanded George, ignoring the witches and wizards with bowed heads streaming past him to the front door, where they could leave the building and then apparate away.

'Well, what?' returned Bill, looking like he'd just been dragged out of an Egyptian tomb. There was even still sand on his boots.

Ron scowled at them, crossing his arms angrily. 'We've been sitting here for _hours_, while you lot did Merlin knows what in there. What's going on? And where's... where's Harry?'

'Young Harry's body,' began Dumbledore, still looking as grave, as _old_, as he had when they'd first seen him that day, 'is being kept in a specially charmed section of the house, until such time as we can organise his funeral. His relatives will, of course, need to be contacted, and --'

'Forget his relatives! They don't give a damn about him and we all know it,' Ginny interrupted, levering herself over the banister and landing in a small heap next to Ron. She stood up. 'We want to see him.'

Molly frowned. 'I don't think that's a good idea, Albus,' she cautioned, glancing at her children sternly.

'Have youseen him?' asked Ron accusingly.

'Well... yes,' Arthur admitted.

'Well, he's _my _friend, and _I _want to see him.' As Ron said this, Ginny crossed her arms defiantly, and the Twins nodded sharply.

'Let us see him,' began Fred evenly, 'or we'll have to find a way to see him on our own. But one way or another, we _will _see him.'

George smirked his agreement. 'Yeah. Even if you foil anything we try, we'll still see him at the funeral, unless you try to stop us from going. So what's the point? There's no way you're keeping us away from him. Why not save yourselves a lot of trouble and let us now?'

Molly didn't seem to know quite how to respond to that. Ron could see the tears forming in her eyes, but frankly, he didn't really care. He was in no mood to give in just because she felt like being a girl about things. And really, was it even such a big thing to ask? He wanted to see his friend's body, and he should be allowed. It was only fair, wasn't it? He had a right -- hell, he just plain _deserved _for them to let him see.

Why weren't they letting him? It wasn't like he was going to burst out crying, like his mother apparently had. And where _was _this "specially charmed section," anyway? Surely, it couldn't be the kitchen. That would be just... wrong.

Neither Dumbledore nor Arthur nor any of the others seemed to have an answer for the Twins, either. They all glanced uncomfortably at Molly, except Dumbledore, who inspected his fingernails serenely. Gulping several times out of sadness, Molly looked down and wouldn't meet anyone's eyes.

'This isn't about us being too young, is it?' snapped Ginny after several minutes of the silence. 'Because if it is, that's a load of crap. If Harry's old enough to die, we're bloody old enough to see his body. Let us _see him_, dammit!'

Ginny's swearing seemed to act as a jolt to Molly, for she brought her head up abruptly and narrowed her eyes at her daughter. 'Don't use that kind of language with me, young lady!'

'Then let us see him,' retorted Ginny firmly.

'I would suggest,' Dumbledore broke in softly, still looking at his fingernail, 'that you allow the young people what they want, Molly.' Her shriek of protest was still only half-formed when he continued. 'I can see no harm in their viewing the corpse.'

'Dammit, it's Harry! Don't talk about him like that!'

'He's dead, Fred,' Bill said quietly.

'That doesn't mean you can talk about him like... like he's just some _body_!' Ron cried vehemently.

Remus shook his head sadly, a huge sorrow visible in his eyes. 'That _is _all he is now, Ron. Just a body; a dead... a lifeless body. You can't bring him back and you can't change that.'

'Shut _up_!' Ginny screamed, tears in her eyes. 'How could Harry just _die_, anyway? He wouldn't _let _himself just die! I won't believe you until you _prove_ it to me!'

Dumbledore let them see his body.

They'd placed him in the cellar, off the kitchen, where they said they'd put up special preservation charms, to hold his body in a sort of limbo until the funeral. It was Harry, sure enough, and he was definitely dead. He was dressed in what he had been when the Aurors found him, nothing but a pair of pajama bottoms that looked like they'd belonged to an elephant in a former life. They hadn't got a casket yet, for which Ron was absurdly grateful.

It wasn't a pretty sight, even though he only appeared to be sleeping, and most of them regretted it afterwards. But not Ginny. For some reason, she couldn't bring herself to believe he was _gone_, and seeing his body only solidified this. The Twins went solemn-faced and strangely normal for a long while, and Ron, well, it just made _him _miserable.

After that they were all very quiet, especially in the presence of adults, and the two youngest spent a great deal of time sitting blankly in front of unfinished essays and papers that needed writing before school started, trying to make the words in the text books read as anything other than '_Harry's dead!'_ And if half the time, Ginny was mumbling and sobbing to herself that he couldn't be, and the other half acting very unusual and uncharacteristically vicious, they all passed it off as the affects of grief.

As more time passed after Harry's death, there was a steady increase in the oddness of Ginny's behaviour. It went unnoticed at first, but two days before Harry's funeral, it reached a point where they could no longer ignore it.

Every night, about an hour after she was sent to bed, Ginny would leave her room to venture down and visit Harry. Because Ron (the only one to notice from the beginning) did not realise immediately that she was seeing Harry, he was not alarmed; Ginny often got up in the middle of the night. Since the few times that she'd been caught out of bed, she hadn't been able to remember them, it had been concluded that she was sleepwalking.

Half-midnight the first night at Grimmauld Place, Ron was sitting on his bed in the room he'd shared with Harry. His pajamas, a little too short in the arms and legs to begin with, were rumpled and bunched, baring several inches of skin in the vicinity of his ankles and wrists.

Back against the wall, knees drawn up to his chest, staring brokenly at the empty bed across from him, Ron was trying desperately not to cry. His bloodshot eyes and suddenly damp cheeks were proof of his failure, when he recalled the last time he'd seen his best friend; trailing dejectedly after his Muggle relatives, still reeling from the death of his godfather.

There was a noise out in the hall and Ron turned his head fractionally to peer out the crack left by the partially open door. He barely caught a glimpse of the back of Ginny's head and nightgown as she slipped down the hall. He sighed.

He'd had such plans for Harry and Ginny this year... But Harry was dead now.

Ron was thrown back into misery.

Ron had been sorry when Sirius died, more so because of the effect it seemed to have on his friend, and also on Professor Lupin. But any grief he'd felt over that paled in comparison to the horrible emptiness and loneliness that came with Harry's death. He was so selfishly absorbed in his sorrow that until now he hadn't even been able to think of how it had hit everyone else.

But the entire wizarding world was mourning with him. The Boy-Who-Lived was dead, and there was no hiding the fact. Ron figured that You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters must be dancing jigs.

**o.o.o.o**

As it happened, however, Lord Voldemort was fuming, and his Death Eaters were suffering for it.

'Get up, Nott,' he hissed harshly, lifting his want from where it had been administering the Cruciatus. The Death Eater rose shakily and staggered back to his place in line.

Lord Voldemort surveyed his assembled followers through narrowed eyes. One, away on the far side of the circle from where he was standing, drew his attention. The red orbs settled on the man, who was quickly motioned forward.

Severus Snape came immediately, Occlumency and his mask hiding his unwillingness. He knelt at the Dark Lord's feet. He waited for Voldemort to speak. And waited.

And waited.

Finally, after what seemed like forever to the Death Eaters and Snape especially, he hissed his displeasure.

'What do _you _know of Potter? Is the boy really dead, or is this just another plot of the old fool's?' he demanded.

There was another silence, this one shorter and more expectant. 'He's dead, my lord,' Snape whispered at length. He cleared his throat when the words came out scratchy.

'You're sure of this?' Lord Voldemort pressed. Snape nodded.

'I've seen his body.'

Now this, this was proof of exactly the thing they'd all been hoping to help their master achieve for the past couple of years. But to their surprise, this angered the Dark Lord immensely. 'Which one of you is responsible for this?'

No one replied.

'Fools,' he spat, stalking around the silent circle.

Suddenly he stopped, a pensive expression crossing his face. 'Yes... of course...' Just as suddenly, it was covered by a stony mask of disinterest.

'Leave me,' snapped the Dark Lord. 'I have things to think over.'

**o.o.o.o**

Hermione, pale and tearstained and completely not herself, showed up on the second day of their return to Grimmauld Place. Though she repeatedly insisted that she was fine, it was obvious that she was not, but most of them were familiar enough with the pain of loss that they said nothing. Ron spent almost every waking moment with her, apparently afraid to let her out of his sight, and be damned if most of the adults didn't sympathise. For her part, the young Muggleborn witch seemed to appreciate the attention.

It was understood by the elder Weasleys that Hermione was to stay until just after the funeral and public memorial service, but no-one seemed to have mentioned that to _her_. Indeed, after witnessing the way she and Ron clung to each other's presence since Harry's death, they were loath to have to tear them apart.

'Can't she stay longer, Headmaster?' Molly asked plaintively. Unsurprising to those that knew her well, she was the strongest advocate for keeping the young people, those most affected by Harry's death, together.

The old man sighed. 'I'm afraid that's out of the question.'

'But _why_?'

Another sigh. 'I... I'm... not entirely sure,' was the weary, whispered reply. The room got eerily quiet with these words, such an odd, open display of uncertainty from the seemingly omniscient Headmaster.

Molly, increasingly worried frown marring her features whenever she thought of it, stopped pressing the subject. She seemed to stop pressing a lot of subjects. She also seemed to be unable to hold a conversation with either of her youngest children without bursting into tears.

No-one in the Order was taking Harry's death well, particularly those that knew of the prophecy -- which at that point was a considerably greater number than it had been just a week before. Some seemed to think it meant that the end was coming, and had given up all hope. Others seemed to think the prophecy itself was a fluke, or that it had been referring to the _first _time Harry had defeated Voldemort. Everyone had their own opinions, and they clung to them like drowning men.

**o.o.o.o**

Despite being caught out of bed several times, Ginny continued to sneak in and spend ever longer periods of time staring at Harry's body. This was when she acted the least like normal Ginny, but no-one noticed that until Hermione found her, the fourth day of the other girl's visit.

People hadn't really been paying much attention to Ginny lately, so it didn't really surprise Hermione to find her with Harry's body. She gently closed the door behind her and took a step closer to the younger girl.

'Ginny?' she asked in a whisper, somehow not willing to raise her voice higher than that, here in this room. There was no answer. Hermione frowned at the back of Ginny's head. 'Ginny?' she repeated, moving around to the other side of Harry's coffin.

She stopped, looking over the foot of the open casket at the young Weasley. There was something odd here...

'Ginny?'

Slowly, and quite reluctantly, Ginny's eyes turned away from staring at Harry's face. Hermione almost backed up a step in surprise -- her eyes were red rimmed, and... red tinged. She didn't look completely awake, either.

'Are... Ginny, are you all right?' Hermione queried tremulously. She felt a bit bad for having neglected her closest female friend like this, but she'd been so _shocked _by Harry's death, she just hadn't thought of anything or one else.

Ginny nodded, turned around stiffly and left the room. Hermione watched her go.

When she followed her out, she almost ran into Ron coming into the kitchen. Ron looked hungry, but that was usual, particularly since Harry's death. He was consoling himself with two things; food and Hermione.

He said her name with surprise, his arms automatically going out to keep her from falling. The gesture turned into a hug when he saw the perplexed, concerned expression on her face. 'Is... Is it... Him?' he asked, unable to either ask her what was wrong or say Harry's name. He hadn't said it for the better part of a week -- it was just too... real, to not remind him that Harry, his Harry, his best mate, was _dead_.

'No,' replied Hermione slowly, thoughtfully. 'Actually, it's Ginny.'

'Ginny?' exclaimed Ron, startled. He backed away so that he'd be able to see her face better. 'What's wrong with Ginny?'

Immediately, he winced. He didn't take back the question, however.

'I'm not sure. But I just saw her, down with... Harry.' Hermione bit her lip when she finished speaking, and Ron couldn't help but notice that she looked less distressed than she had since she'd gotten there. Having something to think about, other than... _that_... was good for her mind.

'With Harry? But, she was sleepwalking again--'

'Ginny sleepwalks?' Hermione interrupted, unduly rattled.

Ron nodded, moving them toward the table. There were chairs there, and, of course, a plate of biscuits. 'Yeah. Well, she used to before she went to Hogwarts, and Mum said she'd stopped, but since... you know... it's come back. She's been doing it every night, at around the same time. I didn't think anything of it, because, honestly, it's Ginny,' Ron knew he was babbling, but he couldn't help himself. He'd almost mentioned what he'd been trying to deny for days. He had to direct his thoughts away from it before he could stop moving his mouth.

'She didn't look like she was sleepwalking.'

'No?' Ron picked up a biscuit and stuffed it in his mouth to prevent him possibly saying anything else. It was a good one, possibly his mum's best; she'd been cooking like mad. Harry would have loved these biscuits, he loved everything that -- no, no, mustn't think like that. Think about Ginny. Not Harry.

'She looked... I don't know, Ron. It disturbed me,' mumbled Hermione, refusing to meet his curious gaze. His heart, now more hers than ever, with the loss of his other best friend, nearly broke the rest of the way at her worried expression.

'What?'

'Her eyes, they weren't... hers.' Hermione sighed. 'I don't know.' That was the second time in two minutes Hermione'd said she didn't know, and it made Ron's chest hurt in a funny sort of all-is-not-right-in-the-world way. Hermione Granger always, _always_ knew. It was like Dumbledore not having an answer to everything, for her to not _know_.

Ron placed a hand gently, awkwardly against her cheek and smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile. 'I'm sure it's nothing, Hermione. If it makes you feel better, though, we can mention it to Professor Dumbledore tomorrow.' Hermione just looked at him gratefully, her eyes shining. Ron cleared his throat, dropping his hand quickly. 'In the meantime, though, I think you should sleep. I should too, of course.'

Hermione smiled. 'Yes,' she said thickly, embracing him suddenly. 'You're very _good_, Ronald Weasley.'

Ron blinked at her, flabbergasted. Blushing, she stood and left the room hurriedly, presumably going to bed as Ron had suggested.

Though he knew he should, Ron himself didn't return to his room that night until very, very late. He sat and stared stonily at the door down to the room they were keeping Harry, occasionally crying silently, contemplating the unfairness of life and how much he hated, hated, _hated _death.

**o.o.o.o**

Hundreds of miles away, Harry Potter stirred.


	4. Little Times Left

As is to be expected, the Disclaimer from last chapter... Still applies. Heh.

**Author's Notes:** Eeeh! Reviewers are, truly, some of the most lovely things ever. Funny reviewers are especially lovely, and intelligent reviewers are extra lovely! And those that are both... are divine! Thank you, thank you, to everyone that reviewed since I updated yesterday morning. (I blush, I blush! I've never gotten that many reviews before, ever. Forgive me if I'm absurdly pleased with the attention from you, dear reader peoples.)

As for this chapter itself, well, it speaks for itself, I think. Though, it's not quite as long as I'd have liked, but ah well. I'll just have to polish up the next chapter extra quick to make up for it. -- That noise you hear is me cracking my knuckles, btw. Lol.

(Oh, did I mention that I've been awake for more than 38 hours? Straight? Yeah. I'm a bit odd right now. Sorry. Hehe.) Here. Nibble on a couple of review responses. _Random_ review responses.

**BEX: **You're an evil sister. I'll hit you with my pillow. I will, see if I don't.

**Little Buddha: **Oh, my! I love it when cats read my work.

**o.o.o.o**

**Little Times Left**

Harry Potter awoke groggy, sore and naked. What he was feeling was almost exactly what waking up with a hangover feels like, actually, but he didn't know it, of course, having never _been _hungover before. He was also, he realised, very cold. Sleeping on unprotected stone usually did that, he figured.

Opening his eyes cautiously, Harry blinked and tried to look around. Without his glasses, though, he couldn't see much of anything. He was feeling incredibly vulnerable, and just a little scared, as he frantically searched around him with his hands, hoping to find his glasses. Or at the very least, his wand. He couldn't _believe_ he didn't have his wand.

He touched a slender shaft of wood on the stone floor, and he hastily scrabbled to get his fingers around it. The familiar feel of it, the weight in his hand, assured him that this was his wand, and he felt much better. Not much could go wrong now.

Or rather, wronger, he amended, considering that he really couldn't remember how he'd gotten here. Everything was a bit fuzzy. He remembered something about being in the Dursleys' kitchen, and something about letting go of his wand. But, he was fairly sure that the kitchen floor at number four wasn't this cold, or rough.

'Ah,' murmured a voice from Harry's left, sounding delighted. 'I see that it worked. You must be him, then.'

'Must be who?' asked Harry warily, turning his head and squinting in an attempt to see the speaker. 'Who are you? Where am I?'

Shuffling noises started a ways off to Harry's left and got progressively closer. 'Nevermind all that right now,' the voice said, a hint of gleeful expectation shading it heavily. 'A better question would be, _when _are you, lad. Tell, what's the date, as you know it?'

Extremely confused, his head hurting worse than before, Harry frowned. He almost shook his head, but then figured that would only make his headache worse. 'I... 31 July 1996. Why, what's going on?'

The eery voice suddenly _crowed_ happily. 'Yes! By Merlin, YES!' There were more shuffling noises, not moving in any particular direction, but not staying in the same place. Harry was rather afraid that whoever'd been speaking to him was _dancing_.

Harry started to get annoyed. 'Excuse me, sir-- mister-- whoever you are,' Harry was fairly sure the voice was male, but he wouldn't bet much on it (the last thing he could remember, after all, seemed to be something to do with making a very bad judgment call), 'but I'm rather... Look, I'm cold. And I'd like my glasses, please.'

'Oh dear.' The shuffling noises stopped. The voice, suddenly more subdued, inquired, 'Glasses? Eyeglasses? Spectacles? Oh no, no no no, this won't do!'

Harry expelled a gusty sigh of extreme annoyance.

Then he felt something, suspiciously like a wand-tip, touch his forehead, and he tensed in sudden fear. The voice quickly said something in Latin. Then, as a strange sensation both soothing and painful swept over his head, settling just behind his eyes, the wand-tip was withdrawn, and Harry suddenly found that he could see perfectly. He blinked.

In front of him hovered one of the oddest men he'd ever seen. About Harry's height when standing, spindly, wide twinkling dark blue eyes, and long greying red hair, were all overshadowed by the garish but faded robes of once brilliant bright purple. There were little paisley patterns of light pink on the shoulders of the odd robes. Harry blinked again.

'Who are you?' he burst out before he could help himself, once again completely forgetting that he was naked.

The odd old man smiled brightly. 'I'm... well it doesn't matter -- you can call me Cain. Who are you?'

**o.o.o.o**

'... And, well, Hermione's worried about her, sir,' Ron finished, more than a little uneasily. Across the table, his thoughtful Headmaster was stroking his beard absently.

'This is most interesting, Mr. Weasley. Why did you think it necessary to make me aware of this?' asked Professor Dumbledore, though Ron got the impression he was more musing to himself than anything.

Ron swallowed thickly. 'I just thought you should know, sir.' He honestly didn't quite understand why it had seemed so important to him that Dumbledore be told about this. There was just this _feeling _in his gut, and his gut rarely lead him wrong.

'I see.' There was a pause, during which Dumbledore's gaze seemed to go a bit glassy. He came back to himself with a sharp shake of his head, frowning in frustration. 'Thank you, Mr. Weasley. I will... look into this for you.'

As Ron stood, giving his Headmaster a respectful little nod, he couldn't help but notice that the man looked much older and tired than he'd used to. This saddened Ron immensely, and he left with a heavy heart indeed.

**o.o.o.o**

The day right before Harry's funeral was scheduled to take place, was a very tense one, for everyone concerned. It had been agreed upon by all that it should be a relatively small affair, and very private, as Harry most likely would have wanted it that way. Only the Weasleys, Remus, and several of the Order members who'd been on the most friendly of terms with him, would be attending. (The extremely public and highly publicized general memorial service, to take place the day after the funeral, was expected to be almost the largest event of its kind in recent history, as it was open to any of the wizarding public who chose to attend.)

People kept scurrying to and fro, doing this job or that task that Dumbledore gave them, most likely to keep them from thinking too much about what it was they were preparing for. Molly Weasley kept _cooking_, and occasionally she could be heard sobbing over her pudding about Harry.

As a matter of fact, Molly hadn't left the kitchen in over six hours, which was starting to worry quite a few people rather considerably.

'It's not healthy,' stated Fred, warily watching the kitchen door. He and his twin were standing in the hall plaguing their older brothers with their fears.

Charlie frowned, unmoved. 'Mum's always cooked, Fred.'

George crossed his arms, and insisted very firmly, 'I think she's going a little mad.'

'More than usual, you mean?' Bill queried teasingly, also not taking the Twins' concerns very seriously.

'Would we be talking to you otherwise?' The two younger men were clearly becoming annoyed, as evidenced by the way the started speaking in unison.

'What do you want us to do, eh?' snapped Bill in retaliation. 'There's not much we could do.'

'We haven't quite got to that part yet, actually,' Fred said sheepishly. He shared a glance with his twin, and George continued, 'We thought maybe you could, oh, distract her, or something.'

'All right, all right,' Charlie sighed. 'But that still leaves the how.'

'They keep telling you, they don't _know _the how,' said a rather amused voice a little way down the hall. They turned to see Ron leaning against the wall. Ron, who had become strangely central to everything lately, and actually somehow seemed to manage to be everywhere when anyone could possibly want him. It was quite unnerving, actually.

Bill actually snorted in amusement. 'And Charlie and I are supposed to think up that part, I suppose?'

Fred beamed at him.

'_Exactly_.'

**o.o.o.o**

Severus Snape was having a terrible week. He felt like every person on the planet -- barring himself, of course -- had gone barmy. And he really couldn't perceive a reason for all these useless theatrics, either.

For example, the Dark Lord had been throwing what was, effectively, a week-long temper tantrum, that almost all of his followers were at a loss to explain. After all, hadn't he _wanted_ Potter dead!

And as for all the people at Order Headquarters... Severus really didn't even want to think about all the melodrama _there_.

Okay, so the saviour of the wizarding world sort of happened to have managed to get himself murdered, under unbelievably odd circumstances. And it was definitely the Potter boy, all right. Severus had been one of the people responsible for helping Albus verify this, and trust him, that hadn't been one of his favorite tasks.

Less of a desirable one, however, was having to help prepare for this _memorial ceremony_. It seemed _expressly _designed to garner Potter even _more _fame, regardless that he was, in point of fact, quite _dead_. Damn fool way to spend a day, chasing after a corpse.

Severus would never understand wizarding public.

**o.o.o.o**

Sirius was walking. It had taken him awhile to start, but now he felt he couldn't stop. At first he wouldn't go because he couldn't see. Or so he told himself.

So he sat for hours, next to the pane of nothing. But then the day came, a soft breaking of pale blue over the surface of the whole land, with no rising point, only gradual lightening. It was the strangest dawn he had ever seen, and it allowed him to see the landscape properly for the first time.

The ground he rested on was an unnatural blend of dust and rock, looking like grey sand packed solid in a child's play box by hundreds of very tiny, toeless feet. This continued until roughly thirty meters out, in a wide circle with it's midpoint the thing that _should _have been the Veil. After this stretched a vast wasteland of rock, riddled with ravines, that if one didn't look past in just the right way, was seemingly endless. If you looked properly, however, you could see mountains rising in the distance.

It was to those mountains that Sirius looked as he picked a direction at random and started walking. His eyes did not linger long there, however, for they soon turned to the darkness of the gorges that littered the ground in all directions. The air got colder as the night wasted and gave itself fully over to day.

There was no vegetation at all. No matter which way he looked Sirius could see no plant life, nor life of any kind. In the deep ruts of the stone, he fancied he could see some movement, every now and then. Through the clinging, impenetrable darkness that shrouded the hollows, he could not tell just what it was, but his scarred mind felt any kind of company would be better than none. He kept himself from them for a goodly time, however, until his longing for the inexplicable warmth of the mysterious shadows.

That was the beginning of Sirius's learning the first of the many truths about the land of the dead. Nothing was the same as that of Life.

It did not act the same; you could not call it the same; you were not the same; none was what it had been. You could not live in Death and be the same.

Sirius moved over the edge of one of the ravines and unto the shallow rock incline that led to the surface from the ravine floor. There was heat in the darkness as he stepped out of the shelter of the light, where it drove the all-encompassing shadows away. He reveled in it as he at last rested his feet on the bottom.

He took a few steps, and the ravine bed looked as if it turned sharply. He made to follow it, but after a few more steps, a wave of confusion swamped him. He suddenly didn't recognize where he was, though he'd been looking in the same place just a moment ago. Trying to reorient himself, he glanced over his shoulder at the ramp down, and felt his heart sink as he saw exactly what he'd been afraid of.

The ramp had disappeared.

Looking ahead again, he saw that the solid wall blocking the way directly forward had disappeared, as well. The ravine was a completely different place. It was no longer just a crack in the ground, it was a labyrinth of connecting, jagged lines. From above it was a sea of random gorges, from below... it was a maze of crags, rising up to prevent you going the way you thought you wanted to, blocking you out and confusing you.

It was like a death trap, Sirius realised in despair. He'd never be able to find his way out, of this hole, much less the land of the dead.

'Fleshie,' hissed a voice from a sharply narrowing crack in the ravine wall. Sirius spun around, coming face-to-face with the shadow of his brother, lurking just beyond the point where Sirius could make out the eerie darkness. Only his face could be seen, hollow and jutted in the strange play of blue light and cold dark. 'What are you doing here? Isn't it enough that we can't touch you?'

'Regulus...' was all Sirius could manage to stutter, surprised, and some faint part of him scared, but only slightly.

The shadow stepped forward, coming as close to Sirius as the man dared let him, before the living would move back slightly, repulsed and frightened by the dead on some strange, unspeakable level. 'Yes, brother,' he whispered harshly. 'I know you. Sirius.'

Sirius wanted to run away. To turn and scramble back up the slope to the relative unknown safety of the strange light of the blue day. But something kept him standing there staring into the long dead eyes of his younger brother.

'I need to get out,' he said at last, watching Regulus closely. The shadow laughed.

'You can't get out, Sirius. No-one gets out. Dead can't come back to life. Life cannot come back once it has become death.'

Sirius gritted his teeth, and said around his clenched jaw, 'I'm not _dead_, Regulus.' This startled his brother into momentary silence. Until, that is, Regulus remembered that he already _knew _that. He was excused, though, because being dead made you tend to forget things.

'It doesn't matter,' the shorter shadow said at length. 'Fleshies can't get out, either.'

'Has there ever been one you didn't... eat, or whatever it is you do to them?' snapped Sirius, glaring.

'No,' was the curt response.

'Then how can you know that they can't get out?' Sirius demanded, feeling himself grow slightly bolder. It took Regulus a small bit of time to realise that he didn't have an answer to that question, but when he did, he scowled, looking confused. Sirius fought with himself to take just a step forward, in order to persuade the thing that had once been his brother to help him.

In the end, the only way he got his feet to move was when he looked at Regulus and saw, not the shade he had become, not the man he'd last seemed in Life, but the very small boy he used to be. The boy Sirius had once loved.

Then he was directly in front of the shadow of his younger brother, less than a foot between them.

'Reggie,' Sirius heard himself whisper sadly, urgently. 'Little brother. Help me. Please.' He did not say "I need your help!" because he didn't think sending shades on ego-trips would get him much of anywhere useful.

Regulus stared at his brother, who stared back. Sirius was morbidly fascinated with the look of his brother, all dark lines and pale spaces, like some grotesque mockery of a Muggle children's coloring book.

Something sparked in the dead Black's eyes, and he nodded. 'All right.'

Sirius's chest clenched up painfully. He hadn't really expected his brother to answer. 'You'll... help me, then?' he asked hopefully. There was another silence, and Sirius thought of Harry, and of Remus, and wanted to go back like he hadn't when James had disappeared. Sirius thought of Wormtail, of Bellatrix, and _needed _to get out, so badly it hurt. It hurt, _it hurt oh Harry Remus I'm trying God it hurt._

Abruptly, Regulus agreed.

'Yes.'

Sirius nearly wept with delighted relief, but figured... It would probably undermine his position of superiority with his brother. Besides, it would have been unmanly.

**o.o.o.o**

She watched as the two men laughingly dragged the woman, protesting weakly, from the room. She knew who they were, she knew what they were doing, she knew why, but she didn't _care_.

She didn't care at all.

Everything was very empty. Even her. She was _especially _empty. It wasn't a good empty... but it wasn't really a bad empty, either, something told her. It wasn't an always empty, and when she wasn't she couldn't remember ever being. It was an unnatural empty.

She'd been this before.

**o.o.o.o**

'Bill, dear, really,' Molly halfheartedly scolded the young man dragging on her right arm. 'I was working in there!' Her aforementioned son chuckled, and from on her other arm Charlie did as well.

'Yes, well,' commiserated Bill, patting her arm soothingly. 'Some of us thought you could use a break. We don't want you working _too _hard, now do we, Mum dearest?'

That was perhaps not the wisest thing to say, as Molly immediately stopped moving and turned to stare shrewdly at her two eldest children. They just watched her studying them, innocent as could be.

'All right, what have they got planned, then?' she demanded, and when Bill and Charlie didn't reply immediately, she added pointedly, 'Don't even try to make me think you don't know what they're up to.'

'Haven't a clue what you're talking about,' mumbled Charlie airily, pulling her along again. He and his brother steered her cleverly toward the parlor, where they knew their father was sitting; if there was anything that could distract Molly from cooking, it was distracting Arthur from any kind of unhappiness (unless it was inflicted by her, of course).

'Honestly, Mum. Not a _clue_.'

Molly highly doubted that.

**o.o.o.o**

'WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?' shrieked Lord Voldemort with unbecoming shrillness. In the minds of the few robed people gathered around him, there was no doubt who he was speaking of -- since the news of Harry Potter's death, Voldemort had been even more obsessive than usual about him.

No-one replied. After stomping around a moment or two longer, the Dark Lord's demand was replaced with an inarticulate scream of rage.

Most of those assembled winced.

None tried to placate the master. Their mouths all remained, quite wisely, shut tight. Voldemort would calm down -- sort of -- on his own time, and anyone who got in the way of his venting, would get in the way of a very painful display of his rather violent rage.

The red-eyed Dark Lord turned his back on the room, staring out into the summer thunderstorm. Lightening cracked a warning across the afternoon sky, followed swiftly by the angry breaking of thunder.

They waited in silence.

Awhile later, Voldemort spun around, his eyes glowing. He looked just a little too pleased to have been so unhappy a short time ago.

'Bella!' he snapped harshly. The addressed Death Eater stepped forward slightly and bowed.

'My lord,' she murmured eagerly.

'Shadow Severus Snape -- find out what he was unable to about Potter's death. _Now._'

**o.o.o.o**


	5. What Seems And What Is

Disclaimer still applies.

**Author's Note:** I'm sorry this took so long. I meant to post it last week, before I left town, but I was too busy. And it's still not as long as I'd like it to be, but I've made my readers wait long enough. (I hope this chapter answers at least _some _of your questions!)

_**A big 'thanks' to all of you that reviewed! Those reviews really put a smile on my face.**_

And now here's the fifth chapter.

**O.O.O.O**

**What Seems And What Is**

Ginny stood over the coffin, one hand partially raised, eyes disbelievingly wide. She was frozen, as if in shock.

Molly appeared at the top of the steps, looking down into the ill-lit room. She frowned when she saw Ginny. 'What are you doing down here?' she snapped. Ginny didn't reply, didn't even seem to realise her mother was there, other than to give a shrill squeak.

Descending the stairs, Molly quickly noticed the same thing that her daughter had. 'What...'

'I don't know,' cried Ginny, a hand over her mouth. 'I just... I found... Oh, _Mum_.'

Hermione's head popped through the doorway, calling, 'Mrs. Weasley?' Molly couldn't form an answer, but seeing her, Hermione didn't need one. 'Professor Dumbledore's here, Mrs. Weasley. Ron's with him now. He said he'd like to talk to you about something. Could you come up -- Ginny? Mrs. Weasley? What is it? Has something happened?'

Tear tracks down her cheeks, Ginny turned to face Hermione, shakily pointing a finger at the casket. Words... weren't really needed. Hermione's eyes widened, horrified.

'Oh, my god.'

Ginny bit her lip and squeaked an agreement, sinking slowly to her knees on the floor.

'Oh my god,' Hermione repeated, incredulous. 'That isn't possible.'

'Hermione,' managed Molly in a strangled voice, 'you said Dumbledore was here?' At Hermione's nod, she continued, 'Go and get him. Now.'

'Yes, Mrs. Weasley,' Hermione nodded, and then she was gone.

'Oh dear, oh dear,' murmured Molly, wringing her hands wretchedly and staring at Harry's coffin. 'Oh _dear_.' Ginny didn't move.

Seconds later, their was a commotion in the kitchen, and a group of people poured out of the kitchen down into the little room. Almost all of them stopped short of the casket, staring at it in disbelief, though they'd probably been warned already what to expect. Only Dumbldore, silver beard gleaming in the faint light, went all the way up to the wooden box.

'How did this happen?' he demanded of Molly and Ginny, his eyes hard and devoid of even the faintest twinkle. Ginny started sobbing quietly from the floor, and one of her brothers moved forward to put a gentle arm around her, still looking shocked.

'I don't-- ' began Molly, shaking her head. Then she hastily corrected herself, '_We _don't know, Albus.'

The corners of the old man's eyes crinkled just barely, but he didn't comment on her choice of words. 'I see. What made you come down here?'

Molly cleared her throat, glanced once at her little girl, and said, 'I just wanted to see him, Albus, and Ginny offered to come with me.'

Only Ginny and Dumbeldore seemed to notice she was lying, and neither commented.

**o.o.o.o**

She wasn't empty. Again. This feeling was so much better than empty, no matter how much sadder. The empty was bad...

But even as she thought it, her awareness of having been empty started to fade, and she was left with a distant memory from years ago as her only knowledge of that emptiness.

(No sense leaving her able to warn anyone, after all.)

**o.o.o.o**

With a jolt, Lord Voldemort sat up painfully straight and glared at the two people in the room with him. The smaller of the pair backed away quickly, but Bella crept forward, anticipating her Lord's need of her.

'My lord?' she asked reverently, head bowed. Lord Voldemort shrieked in rage, and she too backed up, repeating her words.

'This -- Is -- Not -- Possible!' he fumed, gripping the edges of his throne until his knuckles turned white and the wood almost splintered.

'My lord?' Bella asked yet again, curious now.

'First, someone beats me to killing Potter,' hissed the Dark Lord furiously. 'Then I can't figure out how they did it. And _now_, someone's done something to the brat's body.'

Bella's eyes widened. Her companion's probably would have, had they not already been as big as saucers in his terror of Lord Voldemort's rage.

Voldemort howled.

**o.o.o.o**

Ron was in shock.

'But what _happened _to him?' he shouted angrily. Hermione was next to him, clutching his hand and muttering things that were supposed to be calming, but were doing no good at all. Whatever amount of maturity Ron had gained in the past week, he seemed to have lost it all in the space of a half an hour. 'First he bloody dies, and now _this!'_

'Ron,' snapped Bill, one arm around Ginny, who hadn't stopped crying since they'd come up from the cellar. 'We've said already, we don't _know _what happened to him. None of us do. Yelling at us isn't helping.' Charlie, from the other side of his sister, nodded his agreement without saying anything.

George grunted at them, slouching further down in his chair at the table. Next to him, Fred scoffed. 'And you're all doing a bloody great job of finding out, too.'

'This wasn't supposed to be possible,' Hermione declared staunchly, looking down her nose at the Twins. 'It's natural that they shouldn't immediately have an answer.'

A stern glare from Dumbledore silenced them all.

'It is possible,' the aged Headmaster supplied wearily, 'that the Dark Lord or his followers discovered a means to penetrate the wards surrounding this place enough, if not to enter themselves, then to remove Harry's body.'

Ginny sniffled. Molly, sitting between Arthur and Bill, paled considerably. 'Albus! Does that mean -- could they -- my babies!' she shrieked anxiously.

All six of the younger Weasleys cringed simultaneously, sharing a pained look amongst them. Fortunately for them, Molly didn't notice, she was so busy staring at Dumbledore.

He sighed. 'They are all perfectly safe here, Molly, as they are still living and therefore possess certain natural protections which will prevent them from being "snatched" against our will. I'm afraid, though, that this does mean we shall all have to be extra cautious from now on.'

'How so?' inquired Hermione, curious despite her agitation over Harry's now missing body.

'To subvert the wards in such a way, Ms. Granger, the Dark Lord need not be aware of this place's actual location, merely that it existed and was warded,' Dumbledore explained obligingly. 'However, now that he has succeeded in penetrating them, he will be able to recognize them should he ever -- accidentally or intentionally -- come in personal contact with them. He does not necessarily need to see them or be searching for them to find them. We must prevent him, at all costs, from even suspecting this location.'

Bill, the best able to understand this, looked grim. Hermione bit her lip and turned her gaze away. Ron cursed, leaping up and storming away from the table. Hermione made to follow, but George grabbed her arm and held her where she was.

'Let him go,' Fred whispered. 'He needs to think. He does that best alone.'

**o.o.o.o**

You wouldn't have known it to look at him, but Severus Snape was almost as nervous as he'd ever been in his life. He knelt in silence for several long, tense moments, before the Dark Lord in front of him responded.

'... _What _did you say?' was the low, deceptively calm hiss.

'Dumbledore suspects you in the disappearance, my lord,' Severus repeated, biting the words out almost reluctantly.

'_Does _he now...' It wasn't a question. Severus swallowed.

'My lord...' he began, taking rather a risk. One of Lord Voldemort's most important rules was that you _did not ask questions_. If you dared to, you soon found yourself on the receiving end of his favorite "present".

Severus wasn't particularly fond of the Cruciatus, himself.

'Not now, Snape.' And the Dark Lord turned his back, obviously dismissing all of his assembled Death Eaters. Severus blinked rather rapidly at the scrawny robed figure.

As far as Severus knew, there was only one Death Eater who could get away with ever questioning Lord Voldemort about anything, and then only when the master was in a tolerably good mood. And Bellatrix wasn't even _there_.

Severus stood, leaving quickly.

Speaking of Bellatrix... He didn't know where she was or what she was doing -- he seldom did; Lord Voldemort didn't tell him everything, after all -- but he hadn't seen her at the last two meetings. In such particularly stressful times as these, that was reason to worry.

Not that he'd ever worry about Bellatrix Lestrange, mind you.

But... well... he _would _like to be there when the bitch got taken out, someday.

**o.o.o.o**

'It'sss flattering,' Voldemort mused, in Parseltongue, 'to know that the old fool thinksss I wasss involved, that I'm capable of that. But it'sss _annoying_, becaussse I wasssn't. And frussstrating, becaussse I didn't even _think _of ssstealing the boy'sss body. And ssso _intriguing_, becaussse who really _did _take it, eh?

'Ah, my pet, my pet, what am I coming too?'

Silence, very brief.

'Oh, yesss. Jussst the thing, my pet... a _presssent for the Mudblood lover._

'Come, we mussst ssspeak with Bella.'

**o.o.o.o**

There was a single magical tie connecting someone in the room to the outside as he entered. But with his presence, the tie was immediately severed -- a good thing too, the man felt, given the sinister quality of the tie. So dark and malevolent-- He was pretty sure he recognized the feel of that magic.

The man looked around, attempting to pinpoint the other end of the tie. He almost growled when he realised who was in the room with him. If _he _touched one hair on any of these heads, then _oh_, there would be _Hell_ to pay. And he'd been there, too. (Comparatively speaking, anyway. Most people didn't ask him, though, so he didn't get to give that answer.)

**o.o.o.o**

_'Headmaster Dumbledore, can you tell us-- '_

_'Can we see the body of Mr. Potter?'_

_'Dumbledore, Dumbledore, is that a denial!'_

_'Minister Fudge has declared-- '_

_'Is it true that Harry Potter's come back to life?'_

_'Have you figured out what killed him yet, Headmaster?'_

_' --and what do you have to say about that, Dumbledore?'_

_'What sort of items is Mr. Potter being buried with? I heard they still haven't found his wand!'_

_'Sir, over here! Sir!'_

_'The Gringotts goblins tell us there's quite a sum left in Potter's vault-- '_

_'Just a picture, Headmaster, just one comment!'_

_'Where are the Weasleys? How are his friends holding up?'_

_'Who's getting the Potter Estate now that Harry's gone?'_

_'Will we see his ex-girlfriend Granger at the memorial?'_

_'How is the loss of your student affecting you, Dumbledore?'_

_'Where is Mr. Potter being buried?'_

_'Why is Potter's funeral going to be private?'_

_'Did Mr. Potter have any kind of heir at all?'_

_'Sir! Will there really be dragons at the memorial service, to honour Mr. Potter?'_

_'Headmaster Dumbledore!'_

**o.o.o.o**

'Albus, this is a disaster,' proclaimed Minerva. The venerable witch was standing in the Headmaster's office, leaning heavily on her walking stick though she shouldn't have needed it anymore.

'I am aware, Minerva,' Albus assured her, still staring at the papers covering his desk. There were more, and deeper lines on his face, even than when he was in company of the Weasleys.

Albus Dumbledore was getting tired. Of it all. So very _tired_.

Minerva didn't appear much settled, but Albus hardly noticed, which was unusual. 'What's to be done?'

It was as good a time as any to share his thoughts with his Deputy Headmistress. Albus sighed.

'Minerva, I have _one _idea. About the disappearance, not his death. It must not leave this room...'


	6. The Weasleys' Longest Day

**Disclaimer:** Still applies.

**Author's Note:** This took an embarrassing amount of time for me to get posted. But, on the bright side, it's longer than any of the earlier chapters. I hope you like it.

**Thank you!** to all my reviewers, of last chapter and those before it. Don't forget to review this time, and tell me what you think!

**o.o.o.o**

**The Weasleys' Longest Day**

It had been over a day since Ginny had discovered the disappearance, and everyone was still in shock. The adults were all finding it incredibly hard to speak to the three young students, but it didn't really matter, as nobody wanted to talk or had anything to say, anyway.

Because Harry's body had disappeared, they couldn't hold a funeral for him after all, and Ron, Hermione and Ginny were allowed to go to the memorial, which they'd previously been forbidden to attend, the adults having cited that it was too public an event for people so much in the temporary spotlight to be safe at. Still, it wasn't something they were enthusiastic about.

Ron sat in the living room, trying to fidget while not wrinkling his new black dress robes. Next to him on the sofa was Hermione, clutching his left hand in both of hers and staring blankly at her lap. She, too, was wearing fresh black dress robes. Fred and George stood against the wall behind them, uncharacteristically solemn, almost like a pair of black-clad bodyguards.

They were all waiting for ten o'clock, when they would leave for where the memorial was being held.

Ginny wasn't down yet, but Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were in the kitchen with Bill and Charlie. Dumbledore and Remus were going to meet them at the memorial. None of them were looking forward to it.

As soon as it had been decided that the students would be present at the memorial, Dumbledore had asked both Ron and Hermione -- as those who knew him best -- to give speeches about Harry. The two were discussing this quietly as they waited.

'I think we should,' Hermione urged hollowly.

Ron looked at her closely, consideringly. He saw something in her profile that he didn't seem to like, and sighed. 'Are we up to that, Hermione?'

'Ron...' Hermione finally lifted her eyes from her lap, staring at him with wide, bloodshot eyes. 'He deserves it, deserves this. He deserves a lot more than that, a lot more than he's getting. But he definitely deserves _this_. We should do it, not for Dumbledore, not for anyone else. We should do it for Harry.'

Ron was silent for so long, Hermione began to think he wasn't going to respond. He just sat there, watching her so seriously, it made her nervous. Then his cheeks got suspiciously damp. He looked quickly away and swallowed. 'Yeah. Okay. For Harry,' murmured Ron, thickly. 'But... we should do it together.'

'Together?' Hermione queried, blinking.

Ron nodded, extracting his left hand from Hermione's to run it through his hair. 'Yeah.'

'Just give one speech, you mean? The both of us at once?' she pressed, thoughtful. Again, Ron nodded. Hermione bit her lip, smiling a little. 'That would be perfect, Ronald.'

As she said it, her voice was so sincere, so... _loving_, that for a moment he forgot to breath, instead turning his head back round to look at her. The eyes looking back at him were large and over-bright, but they held within them the same sincerity, the same affection as her voice. He decided that maybe he didn't need to breath.

For a second or two, Ron and Hermione forgot about the rest of the world and almost forgot about Harry. For one beautiful moment, there was nothing but them, and that unexplained emotion in Hermione's eyes that Ron suddenly didn't think he could ever live without.

The door opening, so softly they barely heard it, broke the spell, and they looked away from each other to see Ginny drifting in like a ghost. She was wearing new black dress robes, just like all the other occupants of the room. Everyone's wearing black today, Hermione thought. _The world's black_.

Fred and George glanced up from a whispered conversation, that seemed to take place in each other's eyes as much as it did in words, to focus worriedly on their little sister. Though she wasn't the only one looking sad in her crisp black suit of mourning, she looked somehow more sorrowful than anyone else in the room.

'Hey, Ginny,' Hermione called softly, and Ginny wafted over to join them on the sofa.

Ron put his right arm around his sister comfortingly. She leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed heavily. 'You ready for this?' he asked, for something to say.

A tear slid from the girl's red-rimmed eye to hang, quivering, from the end of her pale chin. 'How can you ask that? I'm never going to be ready for this.'

Ron cringed, feeling stupid for his callous question. On his other side, Hermione looked very close to shedding a tear or two herself. She reached across him to clasp one of Ginny's hands.

'I don't think any of us ever will be,' agreed the older girl, fighting back a sob. Ron looked up at the ceiling, his vision swimming as he tried not to give into the tears that he knew he shouldn't feel ashamed of, but did anyway.

They sat that way, the three of them, with the Twins lurking in the background, until Charlie stuck his head through the door.

'Time to leave.'

**o.o.o.o**

'So,' mumbled Regulus uncomfortably, trudging alongside his brother. 'Why are you so sure this is going to work?'

'What?' asked Sirius, not taking his eyes off the ever-changing but always dreary landscape.

'What makes you think you can get out?' clarified the younger, dead Black. He looked faintly amused that his brother hadn't understood him the first time.

Sirius darted his eyes to Regulus and replied simply, 'James told me I could.'

**o.o.o.o**

'I can't do this,' Remus Lupin moaned, holding his head in his hands. 'I can't do this, Albus.'

The Headmaster of Hogwarts watched the werewolf sympathetically from behind his desk. 'You can, Remus.'

'No, I can't!' Slouching further into his seat, Remus dug his fingers into his hair. 'I can't. I can't go to this memorial. I can't.'

'I rather hate to say it, Remus,' sighed Dumbledore sadly, 'but, with Wormtail a traitor and Sirius dead... you are the last. You can, you _must _go today.'

Remus choked on a sob.

'Harry should have someone to represent his parents at the memorial,' Dumbledore added imploringly. 'You owe it to Lily, James and Sirius.'

'Let Molly and Arthur stand for his parents,' suggested Remus brokenly. 'I can't.'

'The Weasleys loved Harry, but they didn't know his family, as you did.' Dumbledore's voice was uneven as he added, 'You must be present, Remus. Think of Harry.'

'I _am _thinking of Harry, damn it!' Remus snapped, storming from his chair to pace the room angrily. Albus stared at him closely, until he seemed to have exhausted most of his sudden burst of energy.

'Remus, _please_.'

Remus halted. His hands were held tightly in fists at his side, his jaw clenched. After a brief moment of internal debate, all the fight drained out of him and he collapsed back into his chair. With great effort, he managed to give Dumbledore a curt nod.

**o.o.o.o**

Though the service didn't officially start until eleven o'clock, there was already a large crowd gathered outside the _Dante Bros. Wizarding Funeral Home and Memorial Center (Est. 1404, Tenth Generation of Dante Management)_ when the Weasleys arrived. Every single person appeared to be dressed in nothing but black.

'I want to go home,' declared Ginny quietly, the moment they set foot on the plush, somber carpet in the foyer.

'Me too,' agreed a voice, coming from the darkest corner. Looking closely, Hermione could barely make out the form of Remus Lupin, sitting all alone on a plush bench against the wall. For some reason, the lonely picture he made caused her throat to constrict, and she had to turn away.

'Where's Albus?' Molly asked him, attempting to ignore the exchange that had just taken place. A door opened and the Headmaster entered.

'Right here, Molly.'

'Oh, good.' She fluttered her hands nervously, looking around at her brood. 'Is... is everything all set up, then?'

Dumbledore nodded readily, his lined face impassive. 'Almost, yes.'

'Good. Good.'

The aged Headmaster smiled slightly. 'Arthur, why don't you and Molly go sit down?' he suggested pleasantly, his blue eyes twinkling just the tiniest bit behind his half-moon spectacles. 'The reserved seats are in the front, just by the podium.'

Arthur had a hand around his wife's waist, and started to gently guide her further into the building. 'All right. We've just got to put his picture down, and then we'll set the family's pillars with the others, first.'

'That will do.' Dumbledore nodded to the couple as they left the room, then returned his gaze to the others gathered in the hall. 'Bill, Charlie, if I might have a word later, before the service begins? Thank you. Please wait through there --' he pointed toward an understated dark wood door, '-- in the reception room. I believe you will find Nymphadora and Alastor there already.'

The two eldest Weasley children slipped through the door without a word.

'Sir?' said Fred, glancing after his older brothers. 'What about...'

'Yes, you may join them if you wish,' Dumbledore answered the unfinished question, again with a slight smile. Cracking weary grins, the Twins disappeared before he could change his mind.

'Let's see, that leaves us... Ah, Miss Weasley. I seem to have overlooked you for a moment there.' His eyes still twinkled as he inspected her serenely. He held out his hand, there was a bag of lemon drops in it. She took one reflexively, but knew that the sweet wasn't what he'd been talking about, as he hadn't offered them to anyone else. 'You seem rather paler this morning. But I suppose that's to be expected isn't it?'

Dumbledore obviously wasn't looking for an answer. He patted Ginny affectionately on the head -- she felt a soothing calmness wash through her, and for the first time in a week did not feel like weeping -- but turned toward her brother in a very businesslike way, and didn't really spare her another look. Remus, still in the corner, notice the more relaxed expression on the youngest Weasley's face, and sighed knowingly. Trust Dumbledore...

'The speakers,' explained Dumbledore slowly, to Ron and Hermione, 'are all to sit on the podium with me. I've taken the liberty of having chairs placed for the two of you there, if you agree...?'

Ron licked his lips, squeezed Hermione's hand, and nodded. 'We've decided we will, sir. If we can go at the same time, of course,' he stated respectfully.

The old man positively beamed. 'That would be wonderful, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger. Now, if you could go on in -- and you as well, Remus -- I believe I need to speak with some persons about something quite important. You'll excuse me, please.'

**o.o.o.o**

'Please,' begged the young man, kneeling pleadingly at his mentor's feet. 'Let me go. I won't stay long, and I won't do anything, I promise. Only let me go.'

'Lad...' The old man heaved a tremendous sigh disproportionate to his spindly body. He steepled his hands in front of his face and rested his lips against the tips of his fingers. At another desperate look from his student, he added pensively, 'What if you're seen? It could ruin--'

'I won't be!' the black-haired lad assured him. 'I'll keep my Invisibility Charm up the whole time -- Or go as the dove! Only please, I've got to go.'

'You know, don't you, that if you blow your cover, it's the end, lad,' remarked the old man. The younger man, though preoccupied, knew his mentor well enough to recognize the acquiescence in those carefully phrased words.

His face lit up, his bright green eyes giving the incredibly pale face a decidedly eery look. 'Thank you, Cain!'

**o.o.o.o**

It was half-past ten o'clock, and the doors had been opened to the public for Harry James Potter's memorial service, set to begin in thirty minutes' time. The speakers were watching the main room of the Memorial Center fill up with people, most of whom had never met Harry at all.

Remus sat next to Ron and Hermione on the podium, looking morose. 'So,' he began out of the corner of his mouth, 'he talked you two into it, as well, did he?' Hermione shook her head.

'We talked ourselves into it,' Ron answered, his voice was low, to ensure that none of the crowd heard him.

Remus turned around in his chair to stare at the both of them. His expression was sadder than ever, and when he spoke he sounded almost ashamed of himself. 'Then you're better friends to Harry than I am.'

**o.o.o.o**

'Go, Nagini. Follow Bella, and do exactly asss I've told you. Only the woman -- leave the man and the fat one. Bella will make sssure they give you no trouble.' The Dark Lord's snake slithered out of the room in the wake of his most trusted follower, and he smiled.

Voldemort looked much too pleased with himself.

**o.o.o.o**

Eleven o'clock rolled around, and the hall was full, with an unbelievably great number of people still queued up outside the Dante Brothers' establishment. The small contingent of reporters that had been allowed in, were being kept in the back by Ministry officials. Aurors had been stationed on both sides of all exits, including windows. There were two mini-shrines set up in Harry's honour -- the main one in an alcove by the doors into the hall, and a smaller one against the front of the speakers' podium.

A bell tolled somewhere, and the hall went silent.

A man in an extremely tall, pointed black hat began the ceremony with the traditional wizards' mourning address, then read some of the details of Harry's life from a roll of parchment. When he sat down, the real speakers began.

The first speaker was a large woman from the Ministry. She was either honestly sorry about Harry's death, or doing a very impressive job acting it. 'I never personally met Harry Potter, in anything remotely resembling a social situation, though I know quite a few people who did; I only encountered Harry once, at a Ministry hearing where he was being accused of underage magic and threatened with expulsion from his school. The main spell, which he performed in defense of himself and his cousin, was impressive. More impressive than I can say, due to his past use of it.

'It was the Patronus Charm, and with it Harry managed to produce a corporeal Patronus -- which he had once used to completely drive off over one hundred dementors. At that time, he was 13, defending his friends... and an escaped mass murderer.

'This was not the only astounding act of magic and courage that Potter has ever displayed. The entirety of his Hogwarts career was marked by such things. And just this last term, young Potter received _the best_ O.W.L. score for the subject of Defense Against the Dark Arts in almost a century and a half.

'What I guess I'm trying to say is... there _is _no way to say how much of a loss Harry's death is to our magical community as a whole, and to every single living witch and wizard, personally.

'Harry Potter was one of those few, special individuals that are born true heroes. He will be missed, even by those who, like myself, did not have the honour of knowing him.'

The rest of the hall remained silent as the woman concluded and returned to her seat. Ron could see his mother crying.

Several people, none of whom had known Harry, took their turns. Then Dumbledore got up to speak. His face was pale, his expression drawn, and his voice deeply saddened.

'Some have said, quite rightly, that Harry Potter was perhaps my favorite student of them all. But many who said it would not understand _why _Harry deserved, and had, this privilege. And that is because they had not met Harry during his life.

'Though he was only an average student in most subjects, Harry stood out as a passionate, caring individual, to those that knew how to read him.

'He was an amazing person, or would have become one when he reached adulthood, no matter which aspect of his life and personality you look at. Born with a capacity to care for people that I have never seen rivaled; gifted with impressive skill on the Quidditch pitch; possessed of an incredible grasp for his favorite subject, Defense Against the Dark Arts; and full of such a great deal of magical potential that it was staggering.

'He was an inspirational figure to many of his classmates, but he never thought of himself as such. And to the last, Harry was a humble, giving, self-deprecating young man.'

With brief moment of silence to allow the public to absorb this, Dumbledore went on, seemingly changing veins, 'I knew Harry's parents well. I was Headmaster when they attended school, and kept in touch with them afterwards. Lily and James Potter I respected and cared for, until their deaths, as a teacher respects and cares for the former students with whom he was close. But their son...

'For the past few years, I have respected, cared for, and admired Harry Potter as a young man who would someday have become my equal.

'I will not speak of how much Harry's demise affects us all, nor of his probable feelings toward his own death -- for, as I have long said, death is merely the greatest adventure any of us will ever embark upon. And Harry was always fond of a good adventure.'

As Dumbledore stepped down to return to his seat, a tear trickled from his eye, into his long silver beard. He did not bother to wipe it away.

Ron and Hermione realised that it was their turn, and they stood slowly. But once they reached the speaker's stand... They found that they could not, at first, speak at all.

At length, when a low mutter of voices had started to break out in the crowded hall, Ron cleared his throat, and Hermione spoke.

'Ron and I have known Harry better than anyone in the past five years of his life. We were the first true friends he ever had, and I like to think that we were the dearest to his heart of anyone.' She stopped to take a breath, and Ron took his turn.

'I met Harry on our first train ride to Hogwarts. Since then, we've had disagreements and fights, just as all friends do, but we never gave up on each other, or Hermione -- and Hermione never gave up on us. I will never miss him more than I do right now, and... I miss him so much, it feels like my heart is empty.'

'Harry has always been an exceptional person--' Hermione said, wringing her hands together. Ron interrupted her to add, 'And even in death, he's still exceptional.'

Hermione gave him a glowing look. Ron found his brain wandering to somewhere it wasn't used to being. He cleared his throat loudly. Half-smiling, Hermione continued, 'My best friend, while he lived, was possibly the most loyal person I ever met. And probably, will ever meet. Even when he was angry with and not speaking to those of us who were lucky enough to hold his loyalty, Harry would never shirk from an opportunity to defend us and stand up for us.'

'Now, I'm just a simple young wizard, and I'm not very good with words and speeches and things, I know that. But I also know... or rather, knew... Harry,' stated Ron, choking on the last few words. But he managed to semi-compose himself surprisingly quickly. 'A lot of people, including Hermione and myself, have listed various things about Harry, and made a big fuss over many of his better qualities. But the best, and most potent, of those qualities, was without a doubt, Love. He never talked about his feelings, but he showed them in his own way. I hope that some day, I can be like him in that...' He swallowed and stopped. Abruptly, he turned and jumped down from the podium. He sprinted down the center aisle to the double doors. Everyone he passed was too startled to stop him.

Hermione started to cry.

'I don't think we've got anything else to say,' she muttered, before chasing after Ron.

**o.o.o.o**

Smirking smugly, Bellatrix strode from the ordinary Muggle home in the ordinary Muggle neighborhood. She stopped outside the house and pointed her wand at the sky. _'Morsmordre!'_ she said confidently. The jet of sparks reflected green off of the shiny brass #4 next to the door.

Laughing, she picked up the large snake at her feet and draped it around her neck, then disapparated.

**o.o.o.o**

Finally Remus, the last speaker, stood.

'As the last of their school friends remaining, I'm supposed to talk about Lily and James, and how proud they would have been of Harry, were they here. But I can't. I can't speak about them, or about Harry.'

Remus looked around the room slowly, meeting the eyes of as many people as he could in a few short moments. He continued just as solemnly as he'd begun, 'People tell you that losing gets easier, after time, but it really doesn't. See, in various ways, to various things, I've lost all of my closest friends -- some more than once -- and now I've lost the last link to those friends. I've lost too much to talk about them.'

'I've lost... too much,' he whispered, wiping his eyes with the handkerchief he'd been holding since the beginning of the service. It didn't stem the flow, as it hadn't all the other times he'd used it.

'I will miss Harry. Just as I miss his parents, and the others that I've lost. Perhaps more, because I lost him after I lost everyone else. But the amount isn't what counts. It's the feelings that create it.'

Once again, Remus surveyed the room with his eyes. 'In conclusion, I have only to say that anyone, _anyone,_ who doesn't miss Harry Potter -- the person, not the icon people have turned him into -- is a damn fool.'

When he finished, there was a deep, pervading silence, such as had followed no other person's words. Then from somewhere, came a soft clap, which gradually built up into a standing ovation for Remus, the rest of the speakers, and mostly, for Harry Potter himself.

**o.o.o.o**

The innocent-looking dove sitting next to one of the windows, which it had inconspicuously opened a crack earlier in the day, ruffled its feathers in an embarrassed sort of way. Shaking it's odd little head, the bird hopped back a little, and took off into the deepening blue of the afternoon sky.

**o.o.o.o**

With the conclusion of the ceremony, Dumbledore had barely began to answer the reporters' questions, when a young woman rushed in. She hesitated just inside the door, then sprinted all the way across the room to where the Headmaster stood.

'Sir,' she gasped out, her voice lifted above the noise of the crowd. 'Sir, it's been spotted, in Surrey. The Dark Mark. Over the house of those Muggles, the ones Potter lived with.'

'Oh... no...' cried Molly, who had just returned from looking for Ron and Hermione, both of which she was shepherding into the room ahead of her. The two, embarrassed teenagers were standing as far apart as possible while being next to each other, blushing and not looking at each other. They didn't seem to be paying attention to what was going on around them.

'When?' demanded Dumbledore urgently, all of his attention fixed on the witch. 'Who saw it?'

'Arabella Figg, sir,' she explained, nervous. 'She said she was just coming home from her shopping an-and she saw... it just floating-- there. Floating there. Sir.'

Dumbledore nodded understandingly. 'I see. Is the Ministry aware of this? Have you notified them?'

'No,' she said with a shake of her head. 'Arabella did, though, I think -- I came straight here.'

'Thank you, Miss Walterson,' murmured Dumbledore. He turned around and took charge of the situation, saying to the press, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm afraid that I shall have to postpone our little conference. You may contact me tomorrow, if you wish. Now, if you'd please leave us, I have some business to take care of.'

As soon as the door closed behind the reporters, the Headmaster began giving out rapid-fire orders.

'Tonks, get to the Ministry and make sure they're aware of this. Then go to Headquarters and stay there. Alastor, Remus, Bill, I want you at Arabella's, as quickly as possible. Stay out of sight, and don't get in the Ministry's way, but make sure you know what's going on. Charlie --'

'Why don't I take the children home, Albus?' Molly cut in quickly, already looking around for Ginny.

Dumbledore looked at her for a moment. 'Ah, yes, an excellent idea. Now, if you would -- Here, this Portkey will take you back to Headquarters.'

Molly snatched it up immediately and thrust it into the hands of the three young teenagers. Before they could protest, they were all whirling away to Grimmauld Place, apparently to be kept in the dark... As usual.

**o.o.o.o**

'You have done well, Bella,' purred Voldemort from his seat, still looking much too pleased with himself. 'You make a good partner for Nagini. I must look into pairing you together again.'


	7. Things They Never Thought To Know

**Disclaimer:** Please don't make me repeat this old thing again; it's painful!

**Author's Note:** Whee, only a week between chapter posts. Not bad, for me. I'm so glad the people that read this enjoyed it. (That bright light you might see keeping you awake, is just me beaming P)

**Review Responses:**

Beewitt: Yay! Thanks.

SpicySugar: I think the story is getting more understandable... or perhaps you _are _getting smarter, lol. Thanks a lot for reviewing. D

Keahi Spitfire: I'm sorry! But everyone needed to be sad for that chappie, because it was the Harry!memorial chapter. This one, they aren't all so sad all the time. Er, I don't think. Thank you!

Bex: Puh, I got two reviews from you. That's to make up for the really short one from last chapter, right? P By rights, I shouldn't even be putting this in the update, I should be waking you up and telling you myself... But what are sisters for? (Mwahaha, I made you sad! Take that!) Go huggle the werepuppy.

**o.o.o.o**

**Things They Never Thought To Know**

Bill followed the M.L.E.S officer through the front door of number four Privet Drive. The young woman had agreed to let him in for a look, but only after a lot of flirting on his part (he hoped Fluer didn't hear about that). Remus and Mad-Eye were waiting back at Arabella Figg's, because the M.L.E.S officer -- Bill thought her name was Rachel -- hadn't thought she could get away with showing more than one person around the scene.

They passed through the front hall, stepping around the empty white-spark outline of a body at the foot of the stairs. In the living room there was another string of sparks, also outlining nothing but a bit of floor. The second of the two outlines was wider and shorter than the first.

Bill grimaced.

Rachel took him into the kitchen. In front of the sink was another outline, this time with a body inside it. Bill almost took a step back when he saw it.

The woman's body was bloated and grossly discolored. Her blond hair hung limp and tangled around a face that was frozen in a mask of pain. One of her stockings had been pulled down to her foot, revealing the bloody mess that should have been her ankle. The stocking was also soiled, and Bill could just make out what appeared to be twin holes, right in the center of the blood spot.

'Merlin,' he breathed, unable to take his eyes off the ghastly sight.

'Snake bite,' Rachel explained matter-of-factly. 'We don't know what kind, but the cap'n says he's sure it took her a long time to die.'

Bill looked away. 'Where are the other bodies?'

'Oh, we shipped 'em off to Mungo's already,' she said with a shrug. 'First thing, really.'

'They're still alive?' exclaimed Bill, startled. Leaving survivors wasn't the usual thing for the Dark Lord.

'Yeah, if you want to call it that. They-- Hey, where are you going?' she demanded. Bill had brushed roughly past her and was hurrying toward the front door. He didn't answer Rachel as he practically sprinted from the house. He had to tell the rest of the Order about this.

**o.o.o.o**

'This isn't fair,' grumbled Ginny, slamming her fist into the armrest next to her.

From where she was curled up in the corner of the sofa, Hermione sighed. 'I suppose.'

'Suppose?' Ginny snapped, glaring over at the older girl. 'Don't you think we have a right to know what's going on?'

Across the room, in a chair by the empty fireplace, Ron shook his head. 'Not really. It has nothing to do with us.'

'Nothing to do with us!' repeated his sister furiously. 'It was Harry's _relatives_ they were talking about back there!'

'Yes, Harry's relatives, whom we have nothing to do with.'

Snarling wordlessly, Ginny leapt from the couch and stormed out, leaving Ron and Hermione alone. They sat in the awkward, tension filled silence for several minutes, each trying to pretend that they weren't uncomfortable in the otherwise unoccupied room. Then, while Ron was sneaking a glance at Hermione, he noticed that she was shivering slightly, despite the temperature of the room.

Slowly getting up, he pulled the blanket from the back of his chair and walked over to stand in front of the sofa. She looked up at him nervously, but all he did was drape the blanket over her. He tucked it in gently and took a step backwards, avoiding her eyes.

'Thank you,' she murmured, smiling slightly. After a moment, she added in a barely audible whisper, 'That was sweet.' He blushed deeply, his ears turning red. Cautiously, he moved closer to her and knelt down.

'I'm sorry about earlier, at the memorial,' he apologized quietly. 'I shouldn't have done... what I did.'

She inched up on the armrest, so that she was sitting a little higher. Her eyes were searching his face for something he wasn't sure should be there. 'Why'd you do it?' she asked.

He licked his lips, hesitating. Then, slowly, 'Why do you think I did it?'

'I don't know.' She blinked several times, quickly, as if there was something in her eye, but she didn't look away. 'I'd like... to think...'

He eagerly fixed his blue eyes on her brown ones, feeling something warm building in his chest, something he couldn't or wouldn't name. He prompted her, just a touch too quickly, 'Yes? Go on.'

'I'd like to think... that you did it... because...' She had to stop and lick her lips, but then continued, 'Because, you... wanted to.'

His face broke into a wide, happy smile that somehow made him look older. The warmth inside him was growing, so quickly he thought his chest would burst, until it had swept into his entire body. She was looking at him just as she had that morning, when they were all there was in the world. His heart started racing. He spoke. 'Well, you're right -- that's why I did it.'

She was smiling, too. 'Then do it again.'

For the second time that day, Ron leaned over and kissed Hermione.

**o.o.o.o**

Ginny was sitting under the window in the room she shared with Hermione, arms wrapped around herself, when she felt an all-too familiar blackness creep over her. She tried to cry out, but the sound was lost as she feel into the silent, crawling dark. Once again, she was no longer herself. She tried, but she could never resist.

The long arm of the Dark Lord was a swift and wicked thing of nightmares.

**o.o.o.o**

When Tonks got to Headquarters, the first thing she did was go where she knew Molly would be; the kitchen. She needed some tea.

'Tonks, dear!' cried Molly from the stove, as the Auror came in and slouched down at the table. 'You look pale. What's... How's...'

Tonks shook her head to show that she knew nothing. 'I need a cuppa,' she sighed.

'Let me just put the kettle on,' murmured Molly. Tonks nodded to Molly's back. In just a few minutes, Molly was setting a cup of tea in front of the younger witch, and sitting down across from her.

Tonks wearily smiled her thanks, and took a large gulp of the steaming liquid. 'Merlin,' she mumbled, staring into her cup. 'What a god-awful day.'

The kindly woman reached over and patted Tonks's hand gently. Tonks reached to clasp the hand, switching her gaze from the cup to Molly's face.

'How do you do it?' she asked softly, anxiously. 'How do you keep living when you that this is... all every day bring, until it's over?'

Looking at the young, distraught witch in front of her, and seeing something of the girl that _she _had been all those many years ago, Molly sighed sadly. 'Oh, Tonks.'

'How do you _do _it?' demanded Tonks, tears welling in her eyes. She was clutching Molly's one hand in both of hers. 'I'm not used to this, Molly. I wasn't close to Sirius and I wasn't close to Harry, but I knew them, and I feel I'm going to burst out crying whenever someone mentions them now. And I wonder, every time something happens, and even when nothing has -- which one is next?'

'Oh Tonks,' Molly repeated, resting her free hand over the other three on the table. 'I worry about that, too. I feel as if it's all I do, worry.'

A tear sliding down her cheek, Tonks whispered, 'How can you handle it?'

'I...' Molly paused. She regarded Tonks with a somewhat critically look. And then, slowly, carefully, she asked, 'Tonks, how would you like to learn to cook?'

**o.o.o.o**

An old man regarded the twenty-two-year-old wizard across from him at the table in their hotel room. The young fellow was holding his head, sighing to himself every few minutes. He would occasionally glance over at his mentor sadly.

'What should I do now, Cain?' he inquired almost brokenly.

The old man thought, smiled, and said, 'Well, you need some better clothes, I'd say.'

Harry sighed again. 'Very funny,' he snapped. His mentor shrugged. Sitting up straight in his chair, he demanded, 'Couldn't you be serious, please?'

Cain's expression sobered. He, too, straightened. 'I was being serious, lad,' averred the old man, just a hint of amusement coloring the words. 'You can't do what you need in _those_ rags.'

'Rags?' Harry stood and moved to look at his attire in the giant mirror hanging on the far wall. After examining himself critically, he finally grimaced and went back to the table. 'I guess you're right. But they were all I could find at the time.'

'Yeah,' agreed Cain with a snort, 'but you're not sixteen and scrawny anymore, are you?'

Harry shook his head, looking very weary suddenly. 'No. Not for awhile, anyway. How long will-- this-- last, did you say?'

'A few months, I think. You didn't take as long as my brother, so I can't be sure,' the white-haired man explained. The lonely young wizard groaned.

'I wish I'd never agreed to any of this,' whispered Harry, lightly brushing the fingers of one hand against the back of his own neck. Cain made a sympathetic noise but said nothing.

With a frown, Harry left his chair and reached for the cloak laying on the seat beside his.

'All right. Let's go do some shopping, old man.'

**o.o.o.o**

Dumbledore's head suddenly appeared in the kitchen fireplace. 'Molly?' he called, his face somber.

'Yes?' answered Molly, from where she sat at the kitchen table. She had just been explaining a few things to Tonks about being the unofficial cook for the Order, and a sort of a code she'd developed for reading-into things Dumbledore said when he told her he'd called meetings.

'I've called a meeting of everyone in the Order -- I think perhaps you ought to make a very large pot of tea.' He paused and glanced over his shoulder. Then he added calmly, 'I'll to be there in just a few moments, once some things have been cleared up over here.' He didn't specify where "here" was.

Then his head was gone from Grimmauld Place. Molly hurried from her chair to refill the tea kettle on the stove, while Tonks went (extra-carefully) toward the cabinets, for the cups.

'That sounded bad?' queried Tonks, trying now to judge how the request for tea figured into things.

Molly gave her a half smile, over her shoulder, as she looked for the second kettle. 'If it had just been "a pot of tea", it would have sounded bad. _That_... sounded _very _bad.'

**o.o.o.o**

Harry Potter had just walked out of a top-end Muggle clothing store and was chatting very animatedly with the bit of air just next to his elbow. Except he didn't look much like Harry Potter.

His unruly jet-black hair had been colored a dirty-blond and jelled so that it looked as if it were _supposed _to be unruly. It also, conveniently, covered his trademark lightning bolt scar. His brilliant emerald green eyes were covered by extremely stylish dark sunglasses; but that didn't really matter because they looked blue today, anyway. As for the rest of him, well... who looks for a scrawny, dead sixteen-year-old wizard in the body of a twenty-plus Muggle, anyway?

Both arms laden with packages, Harry rounded a corner, still talking to nothing. When he found himself in an alley, he paused, and said, 'Come on out for a second, Cain, would you?'

Beside him appeared an bent old man, grinning broadly. 'Fascinating people, female Muggles. What d'you need, lad?'

'Can you take these back to the hotel?' Harry grinned rather ruefully. 'I don't think I could handle my next trip if you're along for the ride.'

'All righty, lad,' Cain laughed. 'Just don't be too long. It makes me nervous when you're out on your own.'

'Afraid I'm going to run away?' joked Harry idly, passing the things from his arms to the old man's. Cain fixed him with a piercing look.

'Yes, I am,' muttered Cain, just before he disappeared again.

Harry snorted. Shaking his head at his mentor, he turned his feet toward Diagon Alley, where he had to buy what Cain had dubbed "spy clothes". And that did seem to be what the old man was turning him into...

Once he got to Diagon Alley, he went straight to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. He was so relieved to see it was virtually empty, that he didn't even need to fake the smile he threw at the pretty young witch behind the counter. She smiled back immediately.

'Good afternoon,' she called in a too-pleasant voice. 'How may I help you?'

For a second Harry couldn't remember the list that he and Cain had spent so long coming up with, but then it -- thankfully -- came crashing back. Harry tried not to drop it 'round his ankles. 'Hullo,' he said, now having to work to keep his engaging smile in place. 'I'm afraid I've got rather a lot of things I've been sent to get...'

'Oh, order size is never a problem,' the girl assured him. Her eyes were busy raking up and down Harry in such a way as suggested that she didn't think _his _size was a problem, either.

'Oh, good.' He winked at her, as if he thought he was being sly. She blushed, and he cringed internally. 'Then I suppose I'll start with... Oh...' He waved vaguely in the direction of a rack of fancy robes for men that looked to be his size. 'That gray set over there, while I try to remember what else she told me to get.'

Glancing quickly at him from the corner of her eye, the saleswitch waved her wand at the robes. They floated over into a dressing room, and Harry followed them. He barely managed to shut the door before he rolled his eyes at his own performance.

He hated flirting, but Cain insisted that it would keep a salesgirl's mind off whatever he bought, and _on _him. Which was somehow good. Harry didn't understand it, really. But it was Cain, so he did as he was told.

'She?' inquired the girl, in a tone that would have been casual if she hadn't looked at him so sharply just before. 'The girlfriend send you out today, eh?'

'Nah, not girlfriend, haven't got one. It's my mother,' explained Harry, trying on the robes he'd randomly selected. 'I got back from overseas just a few days ago, and all of a sudden she thinks I don't know how to dress myself anymore. Bloody Mum, honestly.' He stepped out and smiled at her just as charmingly as he had before. 'It's what I get for spending time with the family over holidays.'

Looking relieved, the girl giggled. Thankfully, she'd already stopped listening to what he was saying, as he rambled on. 'Oh, that won't do at all, you need something darker. Hang on, now, I'll just go find...'

Harry was very glad to make it out of the store an hour and a half later, with everything Cain had instructed him to get packed away nicely in the bags hanging from his arms. He left Diagon Alley by way of the Leaky Cauldron, walked several blocks until he found the dead-end alley he was looking for, and Apparated directly to his hotel room.

Making a face at Cain, Harry threw the bags onto the table and stalked to the other side of the room.

'What's bothering you, lad?' Cain asked, as he leaned over to inspect Harry's purchases. He seemed quite pleased with everything, and didn't have a single complaint to make.

'Ugh,' whined Harry, flinging himself onto the couch. 'Chatting up real girls is even harder than chatting up you pretending to be a girl. Which was damn hard, trust me.'

Cain laughed at his charge.

**o.o.o.o**

'They're raving about him in the papers again,' the young witch remarked to her companion. She flipped a few pages and then, finding nothing else worth looking at, idly tossed the newspaper she'd been reading onto the seat to her right. 'Two stories in today's _Prophet_s, one in each edition, and an article in Witch Weekly.'

The blond male whom she was speaking to made a face without looking up from the book he was pretending to read. 'He's bloody dead,' complained the equally young wizard.

'They've noticed that,' the girl assured him. She flipped over her wrist to look at her watch. 'Your parents were supposed to be back soon, weren't they?'

'Yeah.' The young man shrugged. 'But tell me, how many stories were there about the Dark Lord?'

'One, directly,' answered the girl, her voice dropping reverently as she spoke about the forbidden subject. 'And that came _after _Potter's front page memorial service coverage.'

The blond wizard threw down his book and surged to his feet, standing before his chair indecisively for a moment. Then he walked a few paces to the sofa the witch was seating on and, brushing the papers to the floor, lay down and put his head rather proprietarily in her lap. She giggled.

'What about today's attack?' he snapped. Just because he hated Potter too much to read the papers himself didn't mean he wasn't keeping up with everything.

'What about it?' she asked, her fingers playing with the fine blond locks of his long hair.

He tried not to roll his eyes at her _too _much. 'Do they talk about it?'

'Oh.' She nodded and smiled, coyly. 'Yes, they do.'

'Well?' he demanded, closing his eyes and attempting to relax into her gentle ministrations. '_When _do they talk about it?'

'On the third page of the _Evening Prophet_ -- as an addendum to the in-depth story about Potter's memorial,' murmured the witch helpfully, swinging her legs up from the floor onto the plush sofa and curling them under her slightly. This disturbed the wizard's head; he opened his eyes to send her a glare, but she kept talking. 'The actual words devoted to the attack barely cover half the available page. It's all squeezed in between the adverts for hair potion and --'

'It doesn't matter what the ads were for, luv,' he interrupted her, his cool eyes closed again. 'What matters is that it was between a couple of advertisments. The Dark Lord's going to be mad about that.'

'I suppose,' she agreed without really thinking about it. 'But what can he do about it?'

'He could start by not picking days when he _knows _the media will be otherwise engaged with taking down the story of the century, that's what,' hissed the young wizard, looking offended on behalf of all the people the Dark Lord was cheating from a good attack-story. '_I _would have known better than to do that. _I _could have told him to wait, or do it sooner.'

The girl stroked his head in silence for a few moments, apparently rather uncomfortable with that kind of talk. After all, one didn't want to incite the wrath of the Dark Lord -- and one never knew when he could be listening.

'I suppose,' she repeated vaguely, not really paying attention to what she said, just trying to redirect the conversation. 'Say, did you get your letter yet?'

The wizard cracked open one eye and looked at her blankly. After searching his brain, he seemed to understand her, and closed it again. 'Yeah, I got mine,' he answered. 'Did you get yours?'

'Yeah.' Her fingers stilled in his hair, her hand cradling the crown of his head lovingly. 'I'll be heading to Diagon Alley in a couple of days, actually. You want to come?'

He smiled, looking unabashedly childish, in contrast to the put-on maturity he'd been displaying heretofore. 'Sure.'

**o.o.o.o**

'As far as we have been able to discover, there was only one Death Eater involved in the attack on Harry's relatives -- from the neighbors' description of her, Bellatrix Lestrange.' Dumbledore paused, and his eyes scanned the inhabitants of the large kitchen. 'We know she had Voldemort's snake with her, because that was what killed Petunia Dursley.'

Severus Snape sat several seats away from the Hogwarts Headmaster, looking fixedly at the table in front of him and listening with half an ear. He already knew everything Albus was saying, about not knowing why the attack had been planned, or why Vernon and Dudley Dursley had been left alive. Most of it was information that had come _from _him, so he didn't really need to hear Albus repeating it.

But the words that he'd already said once that evening -- for it was evening by then -- made him think of all the questions he had been able to answer.

And all the questions he never wanted to answer.

Ever.

**o.o.o.o**

'Reg?' began Sirius, glancing sideways at his brother as the walked. It felt like minutes or weeks or years since he'd fallen through the Veil, since he'd started his journey alongside Regulus. And yet the scenery hadn't changed, at all.

'Mm?' was the other Black's response, spoken as he trudged along listlessly from one outcropping of rock to the next silly little ravine.

(Sirius really did disapprove of the decor here in Death.)

'How did you die? Exactly?' Sirius asked tentatively. He'd been thinking of this ever since he'd seen his brother's shade, wondering it as they ambled along together. It was such a silly thing to be preoccupied with, except they were in Death, the two of them, and only Regulus was really dead at all. But Sirius didn't even know how that had happened.

He hadn't ever known who to blame for his kid brother's death, though he'd certainly taken a lot of vindictive joy in blaming it on their mother. In his mind she had deserved it, along with their father, for corrupting someone who could have been a very sweet, caring and _normal _person. For essentially turning Regulus into, well, _a Black_.

'Oh. Well. Bella killed me,' answered Regulus matter-of-factly, as if stating that the sky was blue -- though, in Death, the sky was gray. Sirius had to stop walking to gape at his brother, and Regulus went on a good few paces before realising that Sirius wasn't with him. He blinked awkwardly at the man, 'What?'

'_Bella_ killed you?' repeated Sirius, voice low and disbelieving. '_Our _Bella? Trixie?'

'Yeah, that one.' Regulus nodded. He made as if to start walking again, but Sirius still wasn't following. '... Sirius? What is it?'

Sirius reached out blindly for his brother, voice choking angrily as he demanded, 'Our cousin killed you?'

'Well, yeah.' Regulus shrugged, having had lots of time to get used to this fact, in the many years that he'd been dead. 'She killed you, didn't she?'

'Tried to kill me,' Sirius corrected, his hands closing on nothing. He didn't seem to notice. 'I'm not dead. Remember?'

'Oh. Right.'

**o.o.o.o**

'I don't have to go through that again, do I?' Harry demanded, on his back on the couch, looking around for something to occupy his mind. There was a newspaper on the table by the door, and he summoned it with a tiny flick of his hand.

'No,' declared Cain, picking up the clothing bags and carrying them over to the wardrobe. He sounded extremely amused. 'No more flirting with attractive young saleswitches unless you want to, I promise.'

Harry glared at old man's back as he unfolded the paper. 'It's not that I don't _like _the saleswitches, it's just that I _can't_ -- HEY!'

The young wizard sprang from the couch as if burned, his eyes fastened on the newspaper, indignation burning in the green depths.

'What is it?' called Cain, his head buried in the wardrobe where he was magically expanding the insides to fit all of Harry's purchases.

'Have you _read this_? They killed Petunia!' exclaimed Harry, reaching for his cloak almost absentmindedly. 'The dirty bastard! He's just mean, mean-spirited, mean--'

Cain interrupted the man's ranting with a sudden hand on the strong young shoulder. 'Where do you think you're going, Harry?' he asked in a quiet, even voice, calculated to break through all of Harry's irritation with Voldemort.

Dark blue eyes hooded, Cain looked at him coolly. The man's bald head gleamed as oddly as it had the night they'd met, six years ago in Harry's mind. His jaw tightened rebelliously, but he respected the authority of his teacher. The cloak fell from the young man's hand.

'I--' began Harry, but he didn't let himself finish. Instead he caught whatever words he was going to speak and sidelined them, saying the flat and obedient, 'Nowhere. I was staying right here, master.'

'Good.'

**o.o.o.o**

With all the excitement, it was well after 11pm before Molly even noticed that Ron and Ginny's Hogwarts letters had arrived, and Hermione's too for some reason. They'd been sitting on the table in the living room almost all day she realised, fingering the thick parchment as she stood alone in the darkened room.

And then she wondered why Ron and Hermione hadn't spotted the letters earlier; the two teens at spent nearly all afternoon in the room... alone.

_Ah, well. That would explain it._

Molly wasn't as old as people liked to think she was.

She still remembered what it was like to be a teenager.

Oh, yes, she remembered.

Smiling to herself, Molly Weasley went off to find her husband and drag him up to bed, as he had to be up early the next morning and it was highly important that he got a good night's sleep.


	8. Death Idles Not

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Harry Potter or anything connected to it. Unfortunately. I wouldn't mind owning Sirius Black... Or Tom Felton...

**Author's Note:** I need a beta. I don't have one. Checking-over my own writing makes me nervous. Anyone interesting in beta-ing this story for me?

This chapter actually only took me four hours, over the course of three days, to finish. I'm still hesitant about posting it, however, because of last chapter's reception -- Chapter Seven received the least reviews of _any _of the chapters posted to date. Come on, fellas and dolls... _review_, won't you?

**Review Responses:**

Slim Shady: You'll find out, just wait and see. And M.L.E.S is the Magical Law Enforcement Squad. It's a canon term, hun. Hehe, I forget sometimes, too. Thanks for reviewing!

Le Diablo Blanc2: Thanks! And oh, yes, they're _definitely _going to be pissed.

SpicySugar: Eiah! ((backs away and cowers)) Sorry! But I can't answer those questions... They're important ones! It would give things away! I hope the chapter following this one clears some things up. ((feeble, apologetic look)) I don't make it confusing _intentionally_, you understand... Hehe.

Bex: You're mean, Sissy. I'm stealing your cat. Hmph. So there.

**o.o.o.o**

**Death Idles Not**

Sirius didn't notice at all when Petunia Dursley nee Evans arrived in Death. He didn't know enough about the area to recognize the signs of it. But Regulus, who'd been there quite a long time, and been given a full course in the business upon his own arrival, noticed right away.

'Oooh,' he whispered, stopping quite suddenly. 'I've been _waiting _for this. Come on, we've got to hurry.' And Regulus took off in a very different direction than the one they'd been heading. Being made of mist or fog or something, he floated along quickly, barely skimming the ground with the bottom of his feet. Sirius had to jog to keep up.

'What's going on?' demanded Sirius as he hurried, slightly out of breath.

'Lily Potter's sister just died,' Regulus explained blandly, slowing just the tiniest bit. His brother still found it hard to keep up with him.

'Oh.' Sirius thought about this for a second. 'Um, why are we hurrying, then? I don't like Petunia, or didn't when I met her. And she treated Harry horribly.'

'Yes, I know, that's the point.' Regulus had to pause, both talking and walking, to look unbearably smug. 'That's the thing, you see,' he went on after a moment. 'She treated Lily Potter's boy _terribly_, and Lily's been watching for years. And now, since the officials always allow you to see your relatives just after they get in, Lily can finally do something about it.'

Sirius blinked. He cleared his throat. 'You seem to know a lot about this. For someone that didn't get on with that sort of people while alive, I mean.'

'Well, everybody down here knows all about Lily Potter being angry at her sister,' stated the dead Black. His tone suggested that he thought this would have been quite obvious. 'Because everybody down here knows about anything that has to do with Harry Potter -- did you know, there was a running bet whether he'd end up here before you did? Well, I suppose there still is a bet, seeing as you're not properly here, by rights, but... Well. You know.'

Sirius, however, did not know, but could not seem to find the words to say so, and in the end just nodded mutely.

'Come on,' encouraged Regulus, starting up his brisk pace again. 'We've only got a little while; as a Muggle, it shouldn't take Petunia long to get through the initiation process. Muggles always seem to have a great deal less of the preconceived, unbendable notions about Death. When presented with the facts of things, they're always easy to convince.'

'Yes, all right,' mumbled Sirius, having no idea what he was saying. He once again had to trot to keep up with his brother. 'But where are we going, exactly?'

'The Entrance, of course.'

**o.o.o.o**

Lily Potter had a lot of practice being furious. And, if James said so himself, she was quite good at it. Even being dead did nothing to diminish this -- in fact, James thought it added to how intimidating she could very easily be.

This particular instance, he'd never seen her angrier. Which was saying something.

Sure, he was angry, too. But not nearly _that _angry. For one thing, Petunia wasn't _his _sister, so he didn't feel _betrayed _by her treatment of Harry -- he was just God-awful appalled and rightly furious.

Pacing in the relatives' waiting area near the Entrance to Death, Lily looked like she was about to make someone else spontaneously combust, dead and magic-less or not. Which was why James was standing all the way across the way, talking to Mr. and Mrs. Evans -- who, it was worth noting, also looked rather miffed at their longest-lived daughter. But then, they might just have been annoyed at the mode of Petunia's death because, honestly, she _was _their daughter. Death-by-magical-snake was a horrible way to go, for anyone.

Except perhaps Bellatrix Lestrange.

(James reserved special levels of anger for _her_.)

There was a loud clanging noise, and Petunia suddenly appeared under the large stone arch that led nowhere. She was looking rather apprehensive and nervous.

Fortunately for her, she spotted her parents before anyone else (_quite _a lot of people had turned up). Her expression cleared instantly, and she let out a relieved sigh.

'Dad! Mum!' Petunia breathed, advancing a little with her arms outstretched. This was a common reaction for people seeing parents they'd been fond of while alive. Petunia did not, of course, seem to see James standing on Mr. Evans's right. This might have been a good thing, or might not have, as Petunia had advanced nearly all the way across the room before anyone heard it.

Lily, who'd been momentarily frozen with rage upon seeing her sister for the first time in a decade and a half, suddenly inhaled. Then she screamed a vicious word that one shouldn't normally call their sisters (but which James felt was entirely appropriate for Petunia, though perhaps put to better use describing a female dog).

It was Petunia's turn to freeze, though in her case it might have been out of shock and fear rather than indignation or anger. 'L-Lily?' she stammered, looking around. At first she couldn't locate her sister, for the incredibly large crowd of stranger faces.

But she did spot the redhead. Just before Lily flew at her in a rage, barely restrained by a suddenly appeared and familiar looking young man with black hair, who was _not _Lily's husband, most definitely.

Lily's husband was glaring at her with a murderous look in his dead hazel eyes. 'You foul, horrible, wicked, self-righteous _pig _of a woman!' James snapped, restraining himself from what he would have _liked _to have said.

'You treated my son like your pet slave, Petunia!' yelled Lily, struggling against the grasp of the curiously solid-looking young man. Another, who looked almost exactly like him, except less substantial, joined him in holding her back. 'My _son_! How could you? How could you hate me that much! He was a _baby _when he was sent to you!'

Petunia didn't think it would be wise to explain her reasoning _there_. She looked around. A lot of strangers, all unsettlingly anger-faced, surrounded her. She could see her parents, but they looked _very _disappointed indeed. She swallowed uncomfortably.

'Oh, Petty,' murmured Mrs. Evans, holding her husband's hand and crying sadly. 'Oh, _Petty_. We thought we'd raised you better than that.'

'I... I don't...' Petunia stuttered, having no idea what to say.

The solid-looking black-headed man let go of Lily and turned around. He leveled pale, angry, cold, _living _eyes on the blond ex-Muggle. 'It,' Sirius stated on no uncertain terms, advancing toward her slowly, 'it is a _damn _good thing you're dead. Otherwise, when I got back I might have had to kill you, just on principle for what I've learned down here.'

Petunia glanced between James Potter and Sirius Black, and then to Lily, who was still struggling fiercely against the Sirius-copy. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted.

**o.o.o.o**

'Father and Mother were always disappointed in me, you know. Well, mostly Mother. And it was all because I wasn't at _all _like _you_,' said Regulus. He and Sirius were somewhere far away from the Entrance, sitting alone somewhere in a vast wasteland that to Sirius looked just like all the others in Death. Sirius was resting indian-style, sort of curled in on himself, playing lazily with the loose dirt in front of his legs. He'd made a sort of pyramid out of it already, and was in the process of adding to it.

'Huh? _Me_? They hated me!'

'Yes, well, that was just because you were everything a Black _should _have been, but very rarely was, except you didn't have that very Black-like restriction of only thinking of Purebloods and nobody else as people. Why, you single-handedly stood up for yourself and rebelled against a powerful, powerful force; willingly gave up privilege and money, showing admirable self-sacrifice, in order to support what you believed in. You made _statements_, Sirius. You attracted attention. You stood out. You were proud and independent and intelligent and freethinking.' Regulus shrugged. 'Which was the biggest insult of _all _to Mother. She wanted to hate you for not being a proper Black, but you were more of a Black than the one she married, and she knew it. She thought the least you could have done for your family was to have kept _that _a secret. But really, the whole world knew it.'

'Except me,' corrected Sirius, looking rather dazed. His hands shook, and his pyramid started to crumble of its own accord. 'I didn't know it.'

'Yes, except you,' Regulus agreed readily, nodding. 'You didn't seem to know it, even though all your friends did. I knew it, too, of course. But that didn't do me much good, as I never had a chance to be what you were. Mother's only delight in me was that I thought the same way she did -- or rather, thought what she wanted me to think. I had no backbone, I wasn't like Sirius, I didn't do things myself, I was too much of a lapdog. _I wasn't Sirius. _Oh, yes, she hated that, as well. Two perfect sons, neither of them what she wanted. Two! And she'd only meant to have one, you know.'

Sirius just stared at him.

'What?' demanded Regulus, leaning back against an outcropping. The stretch of solid, even ground they were sitting on was narrow enough that when he straightened his legs out, he had to hold them up or they'd dangle at the knees into one of the ravines. 'Why are you looking at me like that?'

'You've never... I mean, when you were alive...' began Sirius, incredibly confused and not knowing how to explain why. 'That is...'

'I've been doing a lot of thinking, Sirius,' whispered his younger brother, averting his eyes and looking rather said. 'I haven't got much of anything else to do, here. They wouldn't give me a job, and, well, it's been years. You get bored around here, if you don't find something to do with yourself. I chose thinking.'

'Thinking about _me_?'

'Well, after Mother showed up, you were the only one left to watch -- that's the other thing I've been doing, watching people -- and when I'd watch you, I'd think. Because, no offense, or anything, but while you were in Azkaban you didn't really do much, and even _Mother _was more interesting.' Regulus shot him a sort of half smile that actually reached his eyes. 'And when I'd watch you with Harry, before you "died"... Well, it reminded me of the way you used to treat me, before Mother and Father started making so much of a big deal out of how different we were. I always meant, you know, to apologize, for not listening to you. If I'd listened to you to begin with, I could have saved myself a world of trouble.'

Sirius grunted, picked up a rock and threw it as hard as he could. It landed in a ravine quite a ways away, with a barely audible thud. 'If you'd listened to me, all that would have gotten you was death by one of our relatives -- that's what I was in for, before Azkaban. Only reason I lived as long as I did was pure dumb luck.'

'And some other things,' remarked Regulus almost idly, shaking his head. 'But in the end, one of our relatives _did _kill me, so I don't think it much mattered _when _that happened. It could have saved you some grieve, probably.'

Sirius was silent for several minutes, and Regulus didn't try to interrupt whatever it was he was thinking.

'A brother, to run away with me? Some kind of family, even after I renounced all of mine?' mused Sirius quietly, to himself.

'Oh, you had all that. _That's _not what you needed me for.' Regulus looked extremely bitter for a moment. 'You had James, after all. I was talking about something else.'

'What... what do you mean, I had James for that?' asked the elder Black; Sirius looked confused.

Regulus really actually smiled this time. He seemed to think this was all slightly amusing. 'James was your brother, in exactly the ways I _wasn't_ your brother. I remember, when you got sent to Azkaban, he threw a _God-awful _fit. Tried to get them to let him go back as a ghost, so he could prove you hadn't done anything; he couldn't _bear _the thought of you in that place. Me? I just laughed because you were laughing.'

'He... he was angry?' breathed Sirius, his voice sad and a little choked.

'He was worse than angry, Sirius. He was wicked _furious_,' stated Regulus, draping an arm around his brother's shoulders comfortingly. 'I've only ever seen someone that furious a few times, all of them down here. And all but one of them James, actually.'

Sirius sat up straighter. 'Oh?'

'Yeah. He's been constantly furious, over the last Living-year, about what some teacher at school was doing to Harry. Kept trying to get the officials to let him possess her, or something. The teacher was using blood quills on him, you know -- except you probably don't -- and Lily and James were both ready to _kill_. But James was angrier.'

'What?' Sirius couldn't imagine Lily Potter not being just as worked up as James if someone was doing something to their son that they didn't approve of. 'Why?'

'Because you didn't do anything about it.'

'... What!'

'You were Harry's godfather, you weren't in Azkaban anymore... I guess James thought that meant you should have been able to stop it.'

Sirius's eyes brimmed with tears he didn't realise he was close to shedding. 'When else was he that mad?'

Regulus cleared his throat and didn't answer.

'Reg? Tell me.'

'When you showed up,' hissed Regulus reluctantly. It was as if he felt guilty for what he was relating. 'It was like there wasn't any kind of the normal fleshie-compulsion for him. There was just this anger. Surely you must have been wondering why he didn't show up sooner? Well, it was because he was pissed as hell at you. You'd let him down again.'

'Oh, god.'

The corner of Regulus's mouth twitched. He quirked an eyebrow instead of letting the smile out. 'But then you got into trouble with all of us other shades, and he forgot all about something so trivial as _that_... just got mad at _us _because we were putting you in danger. Knight-in-shining-armor-for-the-best-mate to the end, I suppose.'

'Oh, god.'

'You can stop saying that any time you like,' chuckled Regulus, turning to look at his brother. Sirius's head was bowed and cradled in his hands. The arm Regulus had thrown around him curled, letting him brush his fingers questioningly against the older man's neck. 'Sirius?'

'I've been... a horrible disappointment to him. And to Lily. I could have gotten out of Azkaban at any time, you know, but I didn't. Laziness, I guess. Only bothered to leave when I _knew _Harry was in danger -- but he'd been living with those beastly people all those years.'

'I know.' Regulus nodded, his forehead touching the side of his brother's head. 'I know. Everyone knows, here in Death. Mother thinks she ought to be proud of you for letting down the blood-traitors, but she isn't, because you let yourself down, too, which means you let down that sparkling personality she was always jealous of. James isn't half so mad as Lily thinks he should be, though.'

'You're not helping,' choked Sirius, weeping into his once-perfect, aristocratic hands. 'I don't need to hear about how he's forgiven me more than I deserve.'

'Don't you?'

Sirius shook his head wordlessly and moaned. 'Reg. I've made such a mess of my life, and I didn't even know it. How couldn't I know it?'

'Death does things to people,' Regulus said, his tone wry. 'Even if you don't really die.' He paused. 'But you will, you know.'

'What, die? Of course I --'

'No, you'll die _here_, if you stay too long. This isn't any place for the living. Once a year passes out in... out _there_, your life is considered forfeit and you're stuck here.'

For a moment, Sirius looked scared. 'I'll... Oh, god. How long have I been here, Reg? How long?'

Regulus had to think about this for a bit. 'Well, you were here before that _thing _with Harry, but not _much _before it, so... Oh, I'd say, about two or three months, in normal time.'

'But, it's only been a day and a half, here.'

'Yeah. Time passes differently here. Everything is different here.'

Sirius sighed. 'I'm never going to be able to -- Wait. What did you just say, about Harry?'

'Oh.' It took Regulus a second to remember that Sirius didn't hear all the news of Death naturally, the way he did. 'Well. Apparently James noticed that people were having a funeral or memorial service or something for Harry, but--'

'WHAT?' screamed Sirius, leaping to his feet, eyes glowing furiously despite the telltale signs of recent tears.

'--but he's not dead,' Regulus assured Sirius. 'Harry never showed up here, and he's not running around out there as a ghost, but everyone there thinks he's dead.'

'What the...' gasped Sirius, looking bewildered and sad and angry all at the same time.

'Yeah, we're not sure about it, either.'

Sirius was looking around wildly, running his hands through his hair and letting fresh tears run unchecked down his face. 'I've... Oh, hell... I've got to... to...'

'I know, brother,' whispered Regulus, standing and placing his hands on Sirius's shoulders. 'I know.'

Sirius gazed at Regulus imploringly... perhaps wishing he were James, perhaps marveling that he was finally the person Sirius had always hoped, might have known, that he could be.

'Merlin, Reggie. I've never been this glad you were around.'

And then Regulus showed all his teeth, his smile only the tiniest little hint tinged with bitterness, rather like the finest sort of almost-dark chocolate. The most expensive sort. The _best _sort. And Sirius smiled as well.

Regulus was finally showing his best side to Sirius.

**o.o.o.o**

'Gah.'

James was at a loss. He'd been so surprised, so pleased to see Sirius there when they'd confronted Petunia. But he hadn't had a chance to _say _anything to Sirius -- Regulus had dragged his brother away almost as soon as Petunia hit the ground. Sirius had still looked amused that she'd fainted.

'Damn,' he swore savagely, kicking one of the leafless trees. But that didn't seem like quite enough, so he kicked and swore some more. 'Damn, damn, _damn, double damn_.'

He picked a good-sized stick off the ground and swung it, hard, against the tree he'd been kicking. At which point he realised that it was, in fact, a branch that he'd been swinging.

'I hate you, goddamn it, world, I _hate you_,' he screamed at all of the nothingness around him. 'I _hate _you! Do you hear me, you piece of shit?'

He glared at the earth under his feet, the trees, the sky. He was utterly, utterly alone. He cradled the branch close to his chest, like an old friend. 'I HATE YOU!' he screamed so loudly, he thought his throat might fall apart from the force of it.

'You're so bloody _fecking_ unfair,' he moaned, sort of crumbling to the ground, his knees hitting it hard. 'Un_fair_. I can't be there as my son grows up -- and now he's _disappeared_ -- and now I can't even take this _one chance _I have to speak to my best friend, just because of a bunch of silly rules. His brother, whom he didn't speak to for _years _in Life, gets to spend all the time in the _world _with him. But I can't hardly talk to him at all.'

James choked out, around a racking sob such as he hadn't let himself feel since he'd come to Death, 'I want my Sirius back. _I want my Sirius back._'

**o.o.o.o**

Hearing a distinctive _fwoosh_, Albus Dumbledore looked up from his desk, to see the head of an ordinary-looking middle-aged wizard floating in his fireplace. His eyebrows lifted, but otherwise he appeared unruffled.

'Yes?' he prompted, setting aside what he'd been working on.

'Sir,' the wizard began in a rush, 'someone's been going 'round all the shops, buying copies of those books you said to keep a watch on.'

Dumbledore rose from his seat, coming around his desk to crouch in front of the fireplace. 'Which ones?'

'The Grindelwald, and the first You-Know-Who wars ones, sir,' the wizard answered. He looked quite nervous, and kept glancing behind himself. 'Sir, I've really not got much time, but I had to tell you.'

'That's all right,' Dumbledore assured him. 'Who was it, buying these books?'

'Don't know, actually -- no-one's been able to identify him, but I am sure it's the same person.'

Dumbledore sighed. 'Very well. Thank you, Tebbs.'

'Er, sir,' the man said uncertainly. 'There is... one thing more.' He looked even more nervous than he had before. Dumbledore frowned.

'Well?'

'This same person's also been buying some seemingly random history text,' Tebbs stated hurriedly.

'Seemingly?' prodded Dumbledore, frowning very seriously now.

'Yeah. We thought at first that they were just covers for the other books, the ones we were watching for, but we looked into 'em just the same,' explained Tebbs.

'And?'

'The one thing the texts all have in common is that they all have some significant mention of the Potter bloodline, sir.'

'Oh, my _God_.'


	9. Bodily Bits And Pieces

**Disclaimer:** ... still applies, thank you very much.

**Author's Notes:** This chapter disappointed me extremely. Which is horrible, actually, considering I wrote it. But oh well. I'm too busy thinking about seeing the movie again to complain to myself about me.

You can, though! Just review, and yell at me! I'm sure I deserve it, lol.

(Oh,** by the way**,Niamhi -- if you're still interested in beta'ing for me, let me know. I'd really appreciate it, if you were. My contact info's in my user-profile-thingamabobber-ish-ness, if you need it.)

And, finally, I love all of my reviewers. You make me happy, you really do.

**o.o.o.o**

**Bodily Bits And Pieces**

Alone in his office two days after the memorial service, Albus Dumbledore reflected on the disastrous events of the last few weeks. Harry's death was so sudden, so unexpected, it had left Albus in a state of shock that lasted too many days. As he saw it, he'd been blind to things he should have considered before anything else. Looking back now, a startling and seemingly impossible conclusion leapt out.

'Harry, Harry,' Albus sighed, passing a hand over his eyes lightly.

Though he had suspicions -- and suspicions that were growing rapidly, at that -- he said nothing of them to anyone, aside from one brief mention to Minerva that he now regretted. If the full scope of his suspicions panned out, he could have done a great deal of damage with that one conversation.

There were, he felt, two possibilities regarding such strategic purchase of the books he'd been keeping track of. One, was that Voldemort (or an agent on that side) wished to find out how much of his history the general public could possess themselves of. Or two, someone was researching the Potters and their involvement in all wars against Dark Wizards over the last century.

Albus, personally, hoped to high heaven that it was the latter of the two. And he would dearly love to be right about who that person was.

'Harry, _Harry_,' he repeated heavily.

When Harry's letters that he was being treated all right had turned into curt notes that contained nothing but the minimum information required to assure the Order that he was fine... It was _unlike _Harry. Albus felt _sure _he should have investigated that.

But he hadn't. He'd left the boy alone, thinking it best to give him space that, perhaps, looking back, he had not needed.

In all his life, Albus had made very few things which he would truly call mistakes. There had been some, of course, but hardly many. His only problem was that they all seemed to be terrible and happen in groups. As someone had once pointed out to him...

**o.o.o.o**

Pensive, filled with a chill in his bones that he couldn't get rid of, Harry was falling slowly into the memory of knowledge he had thought he did not want. Fifty or five years ago, there had been only one book mentioning Potters that he could get his hands on. He had memorised that passage, that mention of his family.

_As put down by Tristan Potter in the early days -- before The Fall, when Wizarding Briton still had a throne and a king to sit on it -- the Potter Code of Honour demanded retribution against those that impugned the name of the great House, vengeance on those that betrayed it, and death to those that defied it._

_When the king was lost, the New Order came about, and they had first started to hide themselves from Muggles, Sebastian Potter had revised the Code, to better sit with a government that cared not at all for the quarrels of former nobles. Outright talk of death and revenge was removed, but still it remained, smoldering in the hearts of heirs to the line for generations..._

_Older than most and twice as powerful, since the Golden Years, and before. The Potter blood had been preserved well, pure and strong. The Potters never felt the need to interbreed, marry cousin with cousin, because though they were a proud family they ascribed not to prejudice -- and were always rather gifted than plentiful, numbering few._

_Once, in a millennia, had there been enough Potters for circumstances to encourage a bound that transcended familial love and soared into romance. The tale of Roselyna and Aloquacious Potter is one of --_

Harry hadn't been interested in that part, truthfully. A few words on, it had turned into the lovey-dovey stuff that still made him uncomfortable. He read through it once, but after that always skipped ahead, to where Aloquacious had been captured by the rival aristocrat in love with Roselyna...

_Rusisi Black had committed a dangerous act of disrespect toward the House of Potter. In attempting to win, through subterfuge, Roselyna as his second wife, and kidnapping the only son of the head of that great house, he had woken a sleeping monster. This mistake set in motion events which would, ultimately, lead to his death._

_Trapped in Rusisi's dungeon, alone and in pain, a serpent was slowly twitching to life. Aloquacious did not know anything of the history of his family Code, but he did not need to. His soul followed the Code where his mind did not know to, his power grew with the reality of an unfair imprisonment which the House of Potter could _not _tolerate._

_The battle-spirit of his ancestors was awakening in him._

Harry had since been learning some rather surprising details of his family's involvement in history of the most brutal kind; war. He was beginning to realise that his destiny had more to do with who he _truly was_ than with anything a crackpot Seer said. All that scared him.

But nothing scared him more than the things Aloquacious's tale made him see in himself.

_The battle-spirit of his ancestors was awakening in him._

'Lad... _lad_,' snapped Cain, accompanying his words with a sharp slap to the back of the head that broke Harry from his musings. Harry looked up and made a questioning noise.

In a tone which suggested he was repeating something, Cain said, 'Your lunch is cold, and it's past time you started today's practice. What are you doing?'

Sheepish, Harry stood up from the table. He absently began levitating his dishes to the sink, not bothering with his wand or his voice. 'Oh. I must have got lost. That's all.'

'No, don't bother apologizing,' snorted Cain, rolling his eyes very childishly. 'Really, lad, how many times do I have to tell you? _Your mind is a dangerous place._ You can't just go wandering about in it on your own.'

This seemed to rub a long-standing sore spot for the younger man. Harry glared at his mentor and considered voicing his anger. But after a brief struggle with himself he thought better of it, and left the room without responding to Cain.

'Hey,' Cain exclaimed, following him into the sitting area of their "modified" hotel room. 'Don't walk away from me, lad.'

Abruptly, Harry whirled around to face his mentor. He looked quite peeved. 'Pardon? I must have missed that, because for a second I thought you told me not to walk away from you.'

'That's what I said,' returned Cain with a slight frown, wary and confused.

'When are you going to stop treating me like a child?' Harry demanded, his voice rising. Things around him were beginning to shake -- even the sofa, which was actually looking somewhat like an itchy, angry caterpillar. 'When, damn it? I've been learning from you for _six years_, Cain. You have never respected me as an equal -- which you know I am. Hell, you've never even told me your real name!'

Cain looked torn. There was hurt in his eyes, but only anger in his voice. 'Why, you ungrateful little --' he began almost calmly, taking a step closer to the seething young man.

Harry cut him off with a short, bitter laugh. 'Don't, Cain, don't you _dare_. I've been called ungrateful before; it wasn't true then, and it isn't true now,' he declared firmly. There was a pause, and the shaking of the furniture intensified. Harry lowered his voice and went on, 'I've _killed people_ for you. If that's ingratitude, then I might as well roll over and go back to being a Muggle, because I will never be what you call _grateful_.'

'Lad...'

'I'm going to take a nap, Cain.'

**o.o.o.o**

'Morning, Hermione,' Ron proclaimed almost cheerfully as he took a seat across the table from her. Glancing up, Hermione answered him blandly, but added a half-smile.

It was the closest either teen had come to happiness since Harry died. Molly felt some of her worry over their upcoming separation ease. These two had recovered enough to be fine apart for a few weeks.

She still dreaded bringing it up with them, of course. For, in their near-happiness, the two seemed to have forgotten that Hermione was returning to her parents in just a few hours.

Ginny trotted down the stairs, looking rather detached. Ron and Hermione spared her barely a glance. If she noticed this neglect, it didn't show. In fact, she seemed not to notice her brother and her friend at all. She sat down and began eating almost mechanically.

Her eyes were downcast, so that the others couldn't see the shadows within.

Molly called a good morning to her daughter and it was answered with a grunt. Hurmphing gently, Molly chose not to upbraid her child for this disrespect, given the circumstances.

Given the circumstances... There was a lot Molly would chose not to do.

Ron and Hermione had engaged in a conversation that they were carrying out in low, furtive voices. Every few seconds, their eyes would dart around the kitchen, as if they expected someone to jump out and start yelling (or, perhaps, hexing).

'Hermione,' called Molly from the stove, seemingly oblivious of this. 'Dear, are you all packed?'

Glass of pumpkin juice halfway to her mouth, Hermione froze. 'Packed?' she queried in a startled voice.

'Yes, dear,' Molly replied, bustling over with another plate of eggs. Some of these she dropped onto Ginny's plate, the rest she set on the table by Ron's elbow. 'You're going home today, don't you remember?'

Hermione's mouth fell in a little 'o' of surprise, while Ron gaped at his mother.

'Home?' he cried, his voice surprisingly distraught. He half-stood from his chair, his fists clenched. 'You can't send her home.'

'Ron,' Molly cried sharply, and that was all she needed to say.

Ron sank back into his seat, looking forlorn.

'I don't want to go home,' whispered Hermione hopelessly. Even so, her tone suggested she was already resigned to the inevitable. (It was only a few weeks to the start of term, after all. She could wait that long; she was patient.)

'You had probably better,' Ron whispered, staring at his plate as if he couldn't bare to look at anything else. But he smiled, thinking of when they'd be at school again, and he could have Hermione, if not to himself, then at least mostly so.

Giving a satisfied nod, since neither of the teenagers was going to protest too much, Molly went back to the stove.

None of them noticed the fleeting, contemptuous glance Ginny shot Hermione before getting up and leaving the kitchen quickly.

The evilness currently residing in the poor girl's mind heartily disapproved of teenage heartache and loneliness. Besides, it had plans for the girl's body. With Harry Potter's aunt out of the way, the next on the list was the family of the boy's friend. Not even Dumbledore could protect the Weasley's against treachery from one of their own.

In her heart, Ginny cried.

**o.o.o.o**

Outside, in a park not far away from St. Mungo's, a small delegation of Order members stood in horrified silence. Charlie leaned against a tree, one hand covering his eyes, like he'd wanted to through the whole of their brief visit. Kinglsey Shacklebolt and Emmeline Vance stood not far away, silent and grave.

Dumbledore had sent the wizards and witch to check on the conditions of Harry's two remaining relatives, and -- despite all being familiar with the situations of Frank and Alice Longbottom -- they were all unsettled after seeing the effects of Muggle over-exposure to the Cruciatus curse.

Brain damage was only the greatest of the Dursleys' worries; by no means the _only _worry. The two large Muggles looked deformed, the curses having grossly mutilated their bodies, beyond the delegation's power to properly express.

Vernon, who'd been hit first, no longer had hands or feet... only gnarled stumps at the end of his limbs. His face, likewise, was not recognizable as belonging to a human, immense scarring covering it all.

Like his father, Dudley was without certain key appendages. Unlike Vernon, however, the boy's face was more or less how it should have been. That is, if you ignored that his eyes had been burnt out by the magic surging through his unprepared system. It was possible that most of his brain had been fried, as well, but St. Mungo's physicians were uncertain on that point.

But it wasn't like either of the two had any functioning brain cells left, anyway.


	10. When You See Yourself

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything except the plot, and a couple of the characters (the ones you don't recognize). Everything else is the intellectual property of JKR, whom I do not claim to be.

**Author's Note:** I like Harry.

**o.o.o.o**

**When You See Yourself**

Harry Potter was "prickly," as his mentor put it. Even after six years of training, he still threw an occasional tantrum, like the one he'd just directed at Cain. Even after six years of training, he still had an extraordinary amount of buttons that it was just too easy to push.

'At least I've got better control of my magic, if not my temper,' he mumbled, still angry after the semi-row he and his teacher had had just moments ago.

He looked around. He'd told his mentor he was going to nap, but really didn't feel like doing anything of the kind. Letting out a small sigh, he twitched several fingers -- laden with magic -- and spelled the door to his room so no-one could get in.

Quickly, he took off his everyday wizard's robes, since he didn't want to draw _too _much attention to himself, out in the Muggle world.

To anyone that didn't know him, the body under his robes would have inspired a great deal of worry, either for him or for themselves. There was a faint pale sheen on both his shoulder and inside of the opposite elbow; not exactly scars, but something that gave off a sense as if there _should _have been scars. On the lower part of his chest and right side was a thoroughly appalling tracery of thin, whippy white lines; true scars. Thick, rough-looking marks on his back and one thigh spoke of yet more scars.

Strapped to both of his forearms were sheaths that held a wand and knife each. Another such was on his left calf, though that held only two blades. A long, slender wire was wound around the other ankle like a piece of jewelry, though there was somehow a sinister feel to its appearance

In the robes' place he put on dark, cotton slacks and a shirt, as well as a pair of heavy boots. From a chair by his bed he picked up a battered wide-brimmed hat, just as dark as his clothes, and perched it on his head, treating it almost like an old friend. He grabbed the long, thick coat from where it had been under the hat, and easily shrugged it on.

Looking around his room again, he opened the window and smiled slightly.

Then he jumped out of the building, to land like a cat three floors down, in a dark alleyway. His coat flapped and then flared artfully as he landed. The hat stayed on his head, held there by his magic.

'I do _so _love comic book heroes,' he whispered, a very pleased smile on his face.

A boy of maybe nine years stood a little way away, staring at Harry with huge eyes. 'Bugger,' he said feelingly, taking a step backwards, toward the hotel service door he'd just come through.

Harry waved his hand, shooting a powerful -- but gentle -- memory charm at the lad. '_Can't have anyone knowing where I've run off to,_' he thought wickedly, darting out of the alley.

Behind him, the boy blinked and sat down hard on the stone, thinking he'd done nothing more than pick up the comic book he now held. (Harry Potter was really very good with memory charms; he'd had a lot of practice.)

Two hours later, when Harry returned to his hotel room-that-was-now-a-suite via the front door, an extremely annoyed old man was waiting with crossed arms for him. 'I _knew_ you'd left,' he snapped, watching the younger man remove his hat and ruffle his hair tiredly.

Cain paused and his dark blue eyes surveyed Harry's appearance and blanched slightly. The young man's pristine (if slightly worn) clothing was covered in dirt and grass stains, with bits of moss and grass clinging here and there. One of his coat sleeves was torn near the shoulder, the caked blood and dirt giving evidence to a cut lying beneath the material. Harry himself looked the worse for wear as well, with a bruise on his cheek and a cut above his eyebrow.

But he was grinning.

Abruptly, Cain's expression turned rather exasperated. 'Where have you been, Harry?' he asked, with a bit of a sigh.

'Out,' chirped Harry. He seemed to have forgotten the argument they'd had earlier. He tilted his head to the side sharply; it popped loudly; he tilted it the other way and it popped again. He let out a pleased moan. 'That was fun.'

'Boy...'

Harry shot him a look, saying, 'Not now,' as he slid past to the door of his bedroom. With a tap of one finger against the wood, all the spells he'd put on dissolved, and Harry was able to open the door and walk in as if they'd never been there.

'You're going to get yourself killed one of theses days!' Cain shouted through the door, as it closed behind Harry. 'You're still too bloody decent for this job!'

Unexpectedly, the door reopened and Harry stuck his head out, glowering at Cain. All traces of a good mood seemed to have vanished. 'I was never aware that being decent was a crime.'

The door shut again with a slam.

Cain sighed. He just wasn't _used _to having to watch what he said this closely. For the past forty-four years, he'd been more or less alone. Now he was back with his student, but... something had changed. He'd forgotten how touchy Harry could be; Harry himself hadn't forgotten because, to him, virtually no time at all had passed.

That was the trouble with time travel, really.

**o.o.o.o**

'Please, Mum,' Ginny begged, placing an imploring hand on her mother's arm. She glanced back over her shoulder to Ron for help. Neither of them wanted to miss out on the chance to get out of the building and _do _something. Diagon Alley for school things would be perfect if only Molly would let them.

'I said "no",' snapped Molly, not looking up from the stew she was fixing for supper for the dozen or so Order members now routinely stationed at Grimmauld Place.

Ron stepped around to her other side, so that they flanked her, 'C'mon, Mum. We need to get out, you know that. You can't keep us locked up in here like criminals or something.' Ron paused, as if considering the wiseness of his next words. 'Like _they _were.'

Molly dropped her wand, which she'd been using to direct the stirring of the stew, and it went clattering to the floor. She whirled around to glare at her son, but ended up glancing at the kitchen door sadly instead. 'Don't you _dare_, Ronald Weasley,' she warned fiercely. 'I will not be convinced by anything you say to let you leave this house for one instant, until it comes time to go to King's Cross. So you needn't go likening yourself to Sirius Black and... and Harry. Do you hear me?'

Grumbling, and slightly pale from the way his mother had faltered at saying Harry's name, Ron nodded to indicate that he did, in fact, hear his mother. Ginny, her lips pursed glumly, nodded as well, though their mother could not see her.

She turned to leave the kitchen, and her face went totally blank as the monster inside her felt its anger boiling up. The Dark Lord didn't like being disappointed.

'Besides,' Molly was saying, 'Hermione's not going to Diagon Alley, either. The Order's picking up her things, as well.'

Ginny growled softly, a low, inhuman sound. No-one heard it, as the hall was deserted, and their was a thick wooden door between her and the kitchen.

_The Dark Lord did not like being disappointed_.

'Hermione won't be there, either?' asked Ron, somehow seeming to take comfort from this fact. Hermione'd only left the morning before, but already it was obvious to everyone how much Ron was missing her.

'Dumbledore's instructed that she remain at home,' Molly assured him, patting his cheek lovingly. 'I wish all this wasn't necessary to keep you lot safe...'

'Mum,' muttered Ron embarrassedly, even though there was no-one to see him. He edged out of her reach and hung his head, feeling guilty for trying to manipulate her into letting them go out.

His mother looked at him sadly. 'Run along, Ron.'

**o.o.o.o**

Lord Voldemort was not happy at all. His week (or rather, _month_) had started out badly, and only gotten worse as it went along.

First, several of his servants had been attacked, not far from one of his more prominent meeting houses. Then, he'd been unable to get the Weasley brats and their friend Granger out in the open, where he could continue exacting his revenge against Potter's friends. And that was without mentioning that Severus had had absolutely _nothing _new to report.

Voldemort was beginning to suspect that his most useful spy was either losing his touch, or had been found out by the bumbling fool Dumbledore. He would have suspected betrayal, of course, if it hadn't been for the usual quality of Severus's information -- not always completely accurate, but normally mostly so.

Never being wrong and never being right meant the same thing: double-agent.

Bella, of course, his ever-loyal servant, was convinced that Severus was secretly working against them. Bella, of course, his ever-loyal servant, had conspiracy theories coming out of where the sun didn't shine.

Voldemort found it rather amusing, really.

'I have decided, Bella.' Voldemort spoke musingly, rubbing his chin. Bella, kneeling next to his throne with her head bowed over his left hand, perked her ears up attentively.

'Yes, my lord?'

The scheming was evident in Voldemort's voice when he answered, 'Since Severus Snape is getting so little out of our old nemesis the Muggle-loving fool, we should make him useful elsewise.'

Fearing she knew his plan, Bella froze, waiting for him to elaborate.

'You do not ask what I mean. I see I've trained you well,' remarked Voldemort. His voice was approving. He went on to explain, 'Given he be proved worthy, Severus shall accompany you this evening, when you carry out your next mission.'

Bella almost dared glare at her master. 'But, my lord, Nagini and I are perfectly...'

'I am not insinuating that you are less than capable of performing such a simple chore, Bella,' murmured Voldemort, reaching down to caress her head, through her black Death Eater hood. 'I merely wish to make it easier for you. And, naturally, to provide our Potions Master with something to do, lest he become... _bored_ with his service.'

He could tell that Bellatrix wished to object, but was highly satisfied when she managed to hold her tongue. Trained her well, indeed.

'Your arm,' Voldemort instructed Bellatrix. Obediently, she pulled up her left sleeve, baring her Dark Mark. He touched a finger to it, concentrating on Severus, and Bella moaned at the pain.

A minute and a half later, Severus appeared before them and bowed low. 'You called, my lord?'

Voldemort sat and looked his masked servant for a moment. While he considered the precise, single wisest move in the situation, he did something that he very rarely resorted to; he roughly, brutally probed Severus Snape's mind with Leglimency. He found no trace of the event he was looking for.

Well, they'd soon see about _that_.

'Severus,' Voldemort began in a falsely conversational tone, while Severus knelt on the floor breathing heavily from the outright mental attack, 'Three of my Death Eaters were killed recently, outside a safe-house. The one in Kent.'

Obviously, they both knew it was useless for Severus to lie. So when his head snapped up and he stared at his lord, his incredulity visible even through his mask, only Bella was really surprised.

'My lord?' gasped Severus, his voice an octave off his usual pitch. 'Surely... We have a safe-house in _Kent_?'

Voldemort chuckled with dark amusement. Severus let his head drop again, realising that he'd just spoken out of turn, and very foolishly. 'I... That is... And how is this connected to me?'

Voldemort did not answer, merely smiled.

Abruptly, Snape realised that he'd been tested (again) and had passed (again). He gave a barely audible sigh, secretly counting himself fortunate that, had Dumbledore been behind the three deaths, he hadn't mentioned it to his spy.

'I have a task for you,' announced Voldemort, breaking the brief silence that had descending on the small gathering.

'Yes?'

'Go with Bella and Nagini, tonight. Help her kill the parents of that Mudblood, Granger. Nagini will take care of the Mudblood herself.' He gave a vicious smile, his red eyes flashing. 'Just like Potter's filthy Muggle Aunt.'

Severus's heart stopped for a bare few fractions of a second. _He had just been ordered to help in an attack against Hermione Granger_. The Dark Lord did not notice his hesitation, or made no sign of noticing. Severus swallowed quickly, and managed to speak without faltering.

'... Yes, my lord.'

Voldemort nodded. There was no emotion in his voice or on his snake-like face. 'Good. Now, get out of my sight.'

The harsh dismissal, empty of any kind of torture whatsoever, was better than most Death Eaters would ever hope for. But Severus, preoccupied with considering Voldemort's latest horrifying command, simply bowed again and disapparated.

'What did I tell you, Bella?' purred Voldemort smugly, as soon as Severus was gone. 'He is loyal. You should never have doubted him.'

Bellatrix gritted her teeth as quietly as she could. No matter what Voldemort said, she would never fully trust the Potions Master. 'Yes, My Lord.'

Though he appeared very pleased -- with Severus and, indeed, the day in general -- Voldemort nonetheless drew his wand. He pointed it purposefully at Bellatrix. They both knew that she deserved what was coming.

'_Crucio_.'

**o.o.o.o**

Bellatrix Lestrange's devotion to the Dark Lord was unquestionable. She was the most loyal, the most committed of all his Death Eaters. In her eyes, he was above every other person on Earth; he was more than a person, a kind of twisted, demented god. She would do anything for him, anything at all.

Even things he didn't know he needed done.

As the only Death Eater completely aware that their lord could do absolutely no wrong, she considered it her personal responsibility to ensure that he not do the sorts of things others would see as _mistakes_. If this meant intentionally mutilating her interpretation of a direct order, then, well, it was for his own good.

When the Dark Lord had told her to follow Severus, she hadn't really had a problem with it. It was the smart thing to do; she didn't trust Severus at all, and liked him even less than that.

When the Dark Lord had told her to murder Potter's aunt, and torture his other relatives, she'd approved and enjoyed it. The filthy muggles only got what they deserved after all. True, she would have preferred it if she could have killed the man and boy, as well, but -- ah, well -- she wasn't going to quibble. The net effect had been much greater than if she'd done it her way, truth to tell.

When the Dark Lord insisted he could trust Severus, however... This was a mistake, one she blamed Severus for. To mislead their lord and master in such a fashion! Absolute folly. One she'd make sure Severus pay dearly for, someday.

Worse than that, though -- the Dark Lord wanted her to work with Severus! Against that Mudblood friend of Potter's! Bad enough she had to take the _snake_ again...

As if she couldn't do the job on her own!

Forcing down an angry growl, Bellatrix squared her shoulders bravely and marched off into the night. The Dark Lord could make some bad decisions. Not mistakes, mind, just... _bad decisions_. And it was up to her -- the greatest of his servants -- to protect him from those bad decisions.

Now she had to find away to obey his latest order, without actually obeying it.

This silly obsession of his with that Potter boy would get him killed someday, she _knew _it would. Even if Potter was already dead.

She would do anything for her lord and master.

Bellatrix's devotion to the Dark Lord was unquestionable.

She would kill her husband if her lord asked it of her.

Bellatrix's devotion to the Lord was unquestionable.

**o.o.o.o**

'Reg?' queried Sirius, looking thoughtful as they trekked along.

His brother turned his head to look at him. 'Yes?'

'Where're you taking me, anyway?'

'To the Boss,' explained Regulus, his tone suggesting that this should have been obvious.

'The Boss,' repeated Sirius. He looked more than a little skeptical.

'Yes, that's right. Well, I suppose, really, it's to the Underbosses, because the Boss doesn't really trouble himself with... well... _anything_, but-- Yes, that's right.'

Sirius blinked several times, and soundlessly mouthed his brother's words. He seemed to be having difficulty believing they'd actually been said. 'The Boss,' he repeated again, openly disbelieving.

'Yes, that's right,' said Regulus. He was nodding patiently.

'And, er, what is the _Boss_ going to do to help me?' demanded Sirius gruffly.

'Oh.' Regulus thought about this for a moment. 'I'm not sure, really. Perhaps nothing.'

Sirius took this statement in stride. In fact, he looked rather remarkably calm, considering.

'I see.'

Regulus nodded helpfully. 'Yes.'

Bringing up a hand to rub his aching temple, Sirius sighed wearily. It was a damn good thing he didn't need to eat or sleep while in Death.

'Look, Reggie,' he started, with forced reasonability, 'You've got an Entrance here, right? Well, why don't you just take me to the Exit, then, eh?'

Regulus processed this suggestion. '... Oh. That's a fair idea.'

'_I _thought so, yes,' agreed Sirius, his tone laudably level.

'Come on, then.'


	11. The Unexpected Arrival

**Disclaimer: **So, I'm sorry, JKR, but my brain is asleep and I can't think of a clever way to explain to the rest of the world that I own none of this genius (except the plot and certain characters), that it is all _yours_, and I sit humbly in your shadow. You -- and they -- will have to check the previous chapters.

**Author's Notes:** First of all, I apologize for how long this chapter took to finish. It turned out I had other things to concentrate on, and couldn't devote enough time to concentrate on this as I wanted to. That, and my plotbunny farm experienced a oneshot epidemic -- I understand those aren't looked on very highly by the epic-reader community. Hehe. :P

A big thank you, of course, to all of the FOUR people who reviewed the last chapter. Also, the same kind of thank you to all of the people who have this story on their favorite list, their alert list, or who have put it in their C2.

Without further useless author-raving, here's the chapter.

**o.o.o.o**

**The Unexpected Arrival**

'... And he's going to have Nagini kill her,' Severus Snape spat, his hands shaking slightly. 'He wants me to be there. What am I supposed to do, Albus?'

'As you're told, of course,' replied the Headmaster. He looked rather thoughtful, but not apparently concerned.

Severus paled considerably, which was quite a feat, given how pale he'd been to begin with. 'Albus?'

'Go through with it.'

Severus stopped breathing for a moment, he was so shocked.

'What?' he exclaimed, sounding honestly horrified. 'Are you insane? I can't do this! I simply can't!'

'Oh?' prompted Albus, as if he really couldn't figure out why not.

'I can't... I mean, it's Granger, and...' Severus, on the verge of a minor nervous breakdown, was barely managing to bite the words out, and he was absolutely positive that they were making no sense whatsoever. 'It would just... Be so... Come on, Albus, it's Granger.'

'Severus,' murmured the other wizard, sounding just a little amused. 'Some people might think this meant you cared.'

Severus almost rolled his eyes. 'I dislike Granger -- as well as Potter's other friend -- but I'd have to be stupid to not see that she's intelligent. Insultingly intelligent, and disgustingly clever. She's going to be an enormous asset to the Order and the side of Light one day, when she's an adult and has outgrown this silliness... this silliness that is her addiction to Potter and Weasley.'

'For you, that was almost poetic, Severus,' Albus said with an indulgent smile.

'... Well, if you're done humiliating me, Albus, then please, could we be serious now?'

The Headmaster's smile faded. 'I was being serious when I told you to go through with it.'

Severus's face fell. He sat down very heavily, not even noticing that he was in the large, cushy chair behind the Headmaster's desk. 'But, why would you want me to? If Granger dies...'

'Severus,' the old man said quietly, looking his age. 'You have to do this. A dozen Hermiones would not be worth the Order losing such a valuable and trusted spy as you. I cannot let you endanger your position with Voldemort, which means that you must go tonight.

'And besides, I hardly intend to just let the girl be killed.'

Hearing this, Severus spirits lifted slightly. He sat up a little, the better to look at his friend. 'Then, you have a plan?'

'Indeed,' Albus averred reassuringly. Though he was unsmiling, the statement still managed to make Severus feel somewhat better.

Then Severus opened his mouth to inquire about what the Headmaster intended to do, but Albus raised a hand for silence. 'Please, Severus,' he practically whispered. 'I know you'd like to hear something slightly more definite. However, I'm fairly certain that to tell you would be a mistake.'

'I... don't understand.' Severus's jaw worked. There were implications with this that he didn't like at all. 'Is this... some kind of test? Don't you trust me?'

Albus came around and placed a gentle hand on Severus's shoulder. 'There are few I would trust more.'

'Then why keep it from me?' asked Severus, looking up at Albus imploringly. 'Surely I have a right to know.'

Albus did not actually want to explain himself. But he realised that if wanted Severus to have a chance at being capable to perform, he would have to say at least something. 'And if Voldemort decided to invade your mind again? Does he have a right to know, as well?'

There was silence. After a moment, Severus sighed.

'You're right,' he muttered. Then, grudgingly, 'Thank you.'

'You're welcome.' Patting the Potion Master's shoulder, Albus turned back to his daily office-putter.

As Severus was leaving, Albus added, 'Oh, and it would probably be best if you pretended that this conversation never took place.'

Severus nodded.

**o.o.o.o**

The last several hours before he could expect to be summoned to meet Bellatrix, Severus spent in wretched suspense, dreading his mission. He usually managed to stay well away from the more twisted aspects of serving the Dark Lord, but he'd been singled out for this. Supposedly, it was a privilege. This should have made Severus at least professionally proud of a job done well, given the trust this selection implied.

But, he couldn't seem to take comfort in it. He was not happy about anything, for those few hours. Because if Dumbledore's plan -- whatever it was -- failed, and Granger was killed...

Well, for one thing, Ron Weasley would kill him.

(If Severus had been in a less generous mood, he probably would have dignified that worry with at least a "try to", but as things were, it really didn't matter. A fact was a fact and he was a dead man.)

Severus, at one point, even tried puttering, to ease his nerves. Unfortunately, there really wasn't anything in his home worth a putter, and he gave it up after only a few minutes. What a bother. He didn't know how Dumbledore could stand it.

By the time the Dark Lord's summons came and his Dark Mark burned, Severus had fallen so far that he'd begun seriously considering taking a bath, just to pass the time. He donned his mask and robes with even greater reluctance than usual, and Apparated to join his Master. Immediately that he appeared, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head.

'My lord,' he intoned in a suitably reverent whisper.

'Ah, Snape,' hissed Voldemort in mock pleasantry. 'Prompter than usual, I see. Well, well. I dare say, you're more eager for this mission than I had expected.'

Severus managed to resist making any noise of disgust, but it was a gigantic struggle. He calmed -- if you could call it that -- himself by imagining various ways in which he fully expected to be killed by Weasley, should the night go as Voldemort planned.

He had just come to the conclusion that Weasley would probably have several brothers willing to assist in rendering him deceased, when he noticed that Nagini was winding herself around Bellatrix's neck. Voldemort was hissing encouragingly at the snake. Severus unhappily lifted his head to look at the Dark Lord. Bellatrix kept her eyes on the ground, in an unexpectedly servile position.

'The Granger girl is to be killed by Nagini. I don't care what you do to the Mudblood's parents,' instructed Voldemort quite gleefully. 'But they must remain... alive.' He smirked his reptilian smirk.

_Lupin will probably help the Weasleys kill me._

'Yes, my lord,' responded Severus. He was rather surprised when Bellatrix remained silent, but apparently it wasn't important.

'Go,' instructed the Dark Lord, waving a hand. As he spoke, he implanted the location of their destination in their minds. Severus didn't do anything to indicate that he knew it already. 'Enjoy yourselves.'

Severus shuddered. He wished he didn't have to go through with this, that Dumbledore would have agreed that it was too much a risk. Anything, just that he wouldn't be standing and preparing his wand to Apparate.

He wished it even more fervently, when they were standing in the middle of a street, facing the dark living room window of Granger's house.

Beside him, Bellatrix gave hushed sigh of what sounded like relief. Severus glanced at her and saw that she indeed had a relieved look to her face, but there was an absurdly pleased, guilty smiled starting to break over it.

'Bellatrix?' he asked quietly. She waved a hand to shush him and crept toward the house. Nagini slid from her shoulders and slithered ahead of them.

The snake had just reached the grass, when there was a quickly silenced shrieking noise, and a light went on in an upper story window. A silhouette appeared briefly against the shade, then disappeared, and the light went out again.

There was no way they hadn't been spotted.

Cursing silently, the two Death Eaters hurried to the front door. Bellatrix looked honestly peeved, but Severus could feel the tiniest grain of hope starting to flower within him. Someone knew they were there! Possibly, possibly, Granger would have a way to alert the rest of the Order and then any intervention would be legitimate and--

Severus's hope almost died completely when he heard a sequence of loud cracks, and the street filled suddenly with at least half a dozen masked and hooded figures. Bellatrix nearly purred, looking slightly aggravated. 'Finally!'

She charmed the door open and pushed him through it into the hall. She waved for the other Death Eaters to follow, then joined Severus inside the house. They inched ahead quietly, Bellatrix in the lead, and started up the steps.

Overhead, suddenly, there was a thump and a pair of screams, followed by a whooshing noise. Then there was the same heavy silence as before.

'What was that?' demanded Severus in a tense whisper. To _him_, the whooshing had sounded almost exactly like a Portkey -- but what had that thud been?

'It sounded like a Portkey,' said Bellatrix in tones of disgust, echoing his thoughts. 'The other noise, though...'

She turned, facing the Death Eaters who'd entered in their wake, and motioned for them to begin searching the first floor. They fanned out.

Bellatrix herself turned back around and cautiously proceeded up the rest of the stairs. Severus had no choice but to follow her and Nagini, if he wanted to have any chance of preventing Granger's intended death. (That was, if Granger was even still there.) They reached the upper landing, and Bellatrix hesitated.

All of a sudden, there was a small, hastily muffled gasp from the room on the right; if any of their targets were still in the house, that was where they would be. Bellatrix grinned gleefully. Looking very pleased with herself, she began to unwind Nagini from her neck. The instant the gigantic snake touched the floor, it headed straight for the room, and Bellatrix followed.

For an instant, Severus stood paralysed, before his brain caught up to things, and he hurried after them.

It was dark. The room was a bedroom, filled with books -- _Granger's, and not her parents' _-- and there were, literally, books on every available surface. Severus had never seen so many books in a person's private rooms before, except perhaps his own or Dumbledore's.

He looked around.

Bellatrix had opened the closet, which was very close to the hall door, and was poking in between the clothes with her wand. Nagini was in the process of slithering under the bed, another of the likely hiding spots.

A yowl and a stifled yelp later, Hermione Granger appeared on the other side of the bed. She was dressed in nightclothes, and looked very rumpled, but her wand was in her hand. She pointed it at the nearest of the two Death Eaters -- Bellatrix, thankfully -- and fired a hex, the words to which Severus didn't catch.

With a triumphant cackle, Bellatrix blocked the curse and prepared to fire back one of her own. Severus, desperate, hastily pretended to trip while firing his own curse, and it flew obediently at Bellatrix. She was forced to dodge, cursing, which gave Granger time to duck around the corner of her wardrobe. It also established him, unfortunately, as the least dangerous of her opponents -- Granger would probably try and incapacitate him first, to give herself a better environment in which to dispatch Bellatrix.

The large piece of furniture blocked Granger from their view, and Bellatrix cursed again.

Nagini came out from under the bed, hissing violently; for a moment it looked as if she was chasing Granger, but then -- as an orange shape darted after the snake -- it became apparent that she was the mouse, rather than the cat, in this particular situation. And, indeed, it _was _a cat pursuing Nagini. A very large, very angry, very orange cat. It pounced on the snake with claws extended, ripping and biting.

Severus and Bellatrix had more pressing concerns.

A door on the opposite side of the wardrobe opened, just wide enough for a person to slip through, and closed again. Severus and Bellatrix had gotten just enough of a glimpse of the room, through the six inches visible over the top of the wardrobe, to realize that it was a bathroom.

Granger could have been trying to trick them into exposing themselves. But Bellatrix edged around the room, and determined that she had indeed entered the bathroom. 'Stupid little Mudblood thinks she can run away,' she snarled contemptuously.

Without looking away from the bathroom, she pointed imperiously, commanding in a whisper, 'Go make sure there's not another way into that bathroom.'

Severus was just about to comply, mostly because it would give him a legitimate excuse to be out of her presence, when he noticed that she wasn't pointing at him. She was pointing past him, to the bedroom door. He glanced over and saw several of the other Death Eaters; the sounds of commotion must have alerted them that all the action was on the upper level.

Two of the Death Eaters disappeared immediately.

Severus made his way over to the door, where he could watch both Bellatrix and the other Death Eaters. After having decided that Granger wasn't coming back out of the bathroom any time soon, Bellatrix crouched next to the Dark Lord's wounded, unmoving snake. Severus noted, with curiosity, that the cat had disappeared.

'Capture the Mudblood!' Bellatrix shrieked to the Death Eaters in the hall and downstairs. She sounded strangely pleased. 'Don't kill her; the Dark Lord will want to do that for himself!'

There was a disturbance in the hall. One of the Death Eaters had gone down. Severus looked out, in time to see a second Death Eater get hit by a curse. The curse light, however, had come from a bedroom on the other side of the hall.

It seemed that Granger had managed to slip past the wizards standing outside the bathroom's second door -- Severus couldn't have expressed how relieved he was to hear this. But it also seemed as if she was determined to fight back, even while she was in a previously undetected hiding place.

_Why couldn't she have just snuck out, damn it all?_

Granger was probably expecting the Order to arrive at any moment, of course, which could inspire her to behave more rashly than she normally would while outside the influence of Potter and Weasley.

_Please let them be coming, and please let them get here soon. I really would rather Weasley didn't kill me._

Bellatrix was next to him in the doorway as the third, confused Death Eater was put out of action. Granger was getting very lucky, at the moment, but the rest of the Death Eaters were undoubtedly on their way upstairs.

And then there was Bellatrix to deal with.

'Mudblood bitch,' snarled Bellatrix. Severus fought the urge to slap her, because irrationally he was afraid Weasley would hear her. They waited for a moment, but no further spells were fired.

Bellatrix stuck out her wand and muttered a hex, blasting a hole in the wall across the hall.

An orange blur streaked out between their legs, headed for the bedroom where Granger was hiding. It was Granger's cat. There was a strangled cry of fear from the other room. A couple of curses flew out over the cat's head in rapid succession; Bellatrix and Severus were forced to duck back into the room to avoid them. Just before they lost sight of the hall, however, they spotted Granger leap out of the bedroom and scoop the cat into her arms.

There were the rest of the Death Eaters, cresting the top of the stairs. Granger's curses impacted on walls and dissipated harmlessly.

Growing impatient with the exchange of petty spells, Bellatrix stepped from behind the wall, shrieking the Killing Curse. Her wand was pointed directly toward the last place they'd seen Granger.

Severus's heart rate flew out of control -- he was quite sure he was about to have some kind of a coronary. Weasley and Lupin wouldn't even have to kill him. Bellatrix and her bright ideas would do it for them.

Thankfully, Granger had dodged at the last moment, ducking behind a Death Eater who'd tried to sneak up on her. The green light impacted on unfortunate dark wizard, who toppled over. Granger dove behind the rumble that had once been a wall.

Without being told to, the Death Eaters fanned out and took up positions surrounding her cover as best they could.

Things looked rather hopeless.

Desperately, Severus considered leaping over the rumble and whipping back his mask so that Granger could see it was him, and essentially declaring to all and sundry that he was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, because surely being killed by Death Eaters was more favorable than facing Weasley and the rest if he let Granger die.

Fortunately for Severus, it turned out he didn't have to do either.

Several loud, consecutive pops indicated the arrival of more wizards. These turned out to be Order members and one, his vibrant red hair proclaiming him a Weasley, made a beeline for Granger. Severus barely saw it, but the Weasley pressed something into Granger's hand. A few moments later, she disappeared -- it had been a Portkey.

Oh, thank Merlin.

Now all he had to do was not get in the way of any of the nasty jinxes being fired by the irate Order members, and he'd be all right.

**o.o.o.o**

'What _happened_?' demanded Voldemort, in his most vicious hiss. 'I sent you -- two of you -- on a simple, trivial little mission to take out a Mudblood and her Muggle parents. And what happened?'

'Well,' one of the lower level Death Eaters, the only one who'd escaped unscathed, began unwisely.

Voldemort whirled and slashed at the wizard with his wand. 'You do not speak!'

'Yes,' squeaked the wizard, and winced as he was hit again with Voldemort's spell. Severus pitied the fool.

'I do not want excuses!' screamed the Dark Lord, when he had complete quiet again. 'Excuses are weak; I will not have weakness in my followers.'

Everyone stayed silent, as they were expected to, though most of them cowered away from their master's ire. The Dark Lord rounded on the unfortunate soul who'd been selected to look after his snake. 'How is she?'

Because the man couldn't think of a single positive thing to say about the state of Nagini, he said nothing. Voldemort bared his teeth with a hiss, and _Crucio_-ed the fool.

Then, he turned with deliberate slowness to Bellatrix. In a suddenly, frighteningly controlled voice, he ordered everyone else to leave. They went, as quickly as they could. They were all off the hook for the moment. Voldemort had somewhere better to focus his wrathful torture.

Bellatrix was about to be punished.

**o.o.o.o**

The moment Ron saw Hermione, his arms were wrapped around her and he'd said something unprintable.

'Ron,' she gasped into his chest, considering a halfhearted reprimand.

'I was so worried,' he muttered, his face pressed against her bushy hair. 'Oh, Merlin, I was _so worried_. The minute that alarm went off, I was just _sure _--'

She finally remembered to wrap her arms around him in return, to show she was all right, and assured him, 'I'm fine.'

He didn't seem to believe her. But he hadn't let go of her yet, so it didn't matter. 'I feel like I never want to let you out of my sight again,' he informed her, in quiet voice so that his brothers, who were watching, couldn't hear him.

'Oh, Ron,' she said, with a little laugh. 'I'm fine.'

'Still.' He pulled away, put hung on to her arms. He looked down at her critically, something very hard in his blue eyes. 'You could have been--'

'She's _not_, though, Ron,' Ginny muttered loudly, interrupting her youngest brother.

Fred and George had looks on their faces that suggested they wanted to snicker, but were thinking better of it. Hermione shot her best female friend a curious, slightly aggravated glance, but couldn't stand to look away from Ron for very long.

'I really am fine, Ron,' she assured him smilingly.

Before Ron could respond to this, Hermione's parents appeared in the doorway with Dumbledore, effectively cutting off the conversation. With a quick look, Dumbledore took in the situation, and determined that Hermione was fine. 'Excellent.'

Hermione looked over. 'Oh. Professor!'

'Miss Granger,' said Dumbledore, with a slight smile. He nodded slightly toward her parents. 'I'm going to be sending some people to retrieve your parents' things from your house. Is there anything specific you'd like them to bring back, in addition to your school things?'

Hermione's mouth opened, but no sound came out.

'What do you mean, Professor?' asked Ron, frowning slightly. 'Is... will Hermione be staying here again?'

'And her parents, yes,' Dumbledore nodded. 'At least until September 1st. I can't be sure how long it will take to erect the appropriate wards around their home; her parents may have to stay here even longer than that.'

'Really?' Ron pressed, gripping Hermione's upper arms excitedly. Startled, Hermione clutched at his arms in return, as they stared at the Headmaster. A twinkle in his eyes, Dumbledore nodded again.

Ron beamed delightedly.

Rolling her slightly red eyes and snorting expressively, Ginny turned and left the room. Too caught up in what else was happening, nobody noticed.

There went Voldemort's chance of getting to the brats before the next Hogwarts term started.

**o.o.o.o**

'... Ready to go, lad?'

'You better believe it, Cain.'

**o.o.o.o**

It was with sad faces that Ron and Hermione went to platform nine-and-three-quarters on September 1st. For somebody who should have been with them was missing. In more ways than one.

Harry was gone. Utterly gone; even his body was gone.

'Look, it's no use thinking about it,' said Fred bracingly, noting the downcast looks being sported by the two younger teens (Ginny, of course, being blank-faced). He glanced to George for support, but the other boy merely shrugged.

Charlie, who was guarding the students for the Order, along with the Twins and Tonks, glared at him sternly. 'What kind of talk is that?'

Defensive on the part of his twin, George broke in loudly, 'And what was that for?' His overly loud tone attracted the attention of some of the others gathered on the platform. Also, it allowed the reporters, previously huddled together near the archway, to spot the group at last.

This Tonks noticed.

Under normal circumstances, the word she uttered would have earned a gasp of disapproval from Hermione. But those weren't normal circumstances. All Hermione did was mumble something to herself.

Charlie -- with an almost panicked glance at the members of the press, now making their way through the crowd to the "friends of the late boy hero" --began ushering the three onboard the train.

Ginny, in the lead (Voldemort had no time for reporters, either), had just put her foot on the runner and was stepping up with the other, when an even greater disturbance took place back under the archway.

This piqued the Dark Lord's interest, ever so slightly.

Tonks groaned loudly, pulling out her wand. 'What is that, now?'

Suspicious, Charlie frowned. 'George, Fred, you two go look. Make it quick, please?' eagerly, the Twins set off.

Their yells, heard after several minutes of tense, inactive waiting, were of such a nature as to turn Ginny's blood cold. Shock was in those voices, and fear also. Each of them heard the unmistakable tones and each one knew what they meant; something was not right, very not right. (And that was enough to make Voldemort's unblood run hot with excitement.)

'What do we do?' asked Hermione, speaking first, immediately -- Ron would have but he was too busy trying to figure out how to make Charlie let him help, which was what he wanted and knew he ought to do.

Steeling himself, Charlie pushed Tonks up with Ginny. He prepared to push his way through the milling, chaotic masses, his wand gripped tightly in his left hand. 'What you do, Hermione, is you get on that train and you stay there, no matter what.' His voice was grim and firm, leaving no room for argument. 'I'm going to he-- see about the Twins.'

Tonks opened her mouth to say something, but Charlie stopped her with a squeeze of the hand no-one else had realised he was holding.

'Stay with Ginny and Ron and Hermione,' he instructed in a gentler, but no less hurried, tone. 'This is just like the last time.'

'God, I hope not,' snorted Tonks. Charlie chuckled darkly and gave her a little nudge further onto the train. 'Go.'

Though none of the teens understood this (and Voldemort very much would have liked to), Tonks nodded obediently, climbing into the train. She reached to pull Ginny in also, as she was the closest, but the redhead jumped down. Glancing at Ron (though Voldemort really didn't care what the Weasley thought), she went after the fast disappearing back of their elder brother.

Hermione took two quick steps and placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. 'No, don't, he's right, we should just get onboard.'

Voldemort wanted to growl, but he managed to stop it in time. All that escaped Ginny was an impatient tch-ing.

Storming past Hermione, Ron grabbed Ginny's hand and kept walking. 'Those are our brothers,' he protested, ignoring the indignant reprimands of Tonks, who was back on the station floor again.

'Right,' agreed Ginny forcefully. (Of course, Voldemort didn't really give a crap about anyone's brother... But he was a master manipulator. He got what he wanted. And right then, he wanted to see what was causing such a fuss.) 'We've got a right. I'm not going to risk losing them like we did Harry.'

(Oh, that'll get her, that'll definitely get her.)

The words must have struck something in Hermione, for the brunette quickly nodded her acquiescence. She drew her wand and reached for Ginny's arm, already beginning to push and shove her way through the crowd.

Dismayed, Tonks followed them.

Somehow along the way, the small chain of friends seemed to absorb others. Neville was there, and Luna with him. Katie Bell appeared. The two Creevy boys, Terry Boot, Ernie McMillian...

Soon they comprised almost every single returning member of the D.A., it didn't seem to matter much that most of them hadn't seen each other all summer, or that the group had been disbanded long before the end of term. Something was going on and they were not about to stand blindly by and let it.

(Bloody Potter, inspiring loyalty even after he was dead. Stupid Potter.)

As their numbers swelled, they began to move faster and faster, picking up speed as their band cut a larger and large swathe through the onlookers. Tonks, on her own in a sea of hundreds and already well back, was swallowed up and left behind.

The leaders of the little group stopped short, however, when they came to the edge of the crowd, a full ten yards from the entrance to the platform. Standing just inside was a young black-haired man, the wands of three Weasleys already trained on his chest. A little ways over lay a pile of motionless wizards and witches -- the reporters.

The crowd, it seemed, was keeping a safe distance. Surveying the damage that the man had apparently done on his own and in a very short time, Ron could see why they might. And that was to say nothing of the otherwise-ordinary-looking man himself. Ron and the other D.A. members took a closer look at him. A double take. Even Voldemort was not immune to shock, it seemed.

(... What the...)

'My God,' exclaimed Justin Finch-Fletchly. 'He's supposed to be dead.'

Indeed, Harry Potter was supposed to be dead.

But he was also standing right in front of them with his arms crossed, looking smug and almost... evil.

(This could mean trouble.)

'That's a strange kind of welcome, Justin,' the Harry commented in a would-be-casual voice. 'I was actually kind of under the impression that the wizarding world didn't like me being dead.'

Unthinking, Ron dropped Ginny's hand and almost ran forward to embrace his friend. Numbly, Hermione caught his arm before he could take more than a few steps.

'No, Ron,' barked Charlie, his eyes narrowed fiercely. 'Harry's dead. This isn't him.'

The Harry threw up his hands in irritation. Turning his head, he rhetorically asked the pile of paparazzi, 'Why does everyone keep saying that, do you think?' There was something of an edge to his voice that inexplicably made everyone uneasy.

Ginny broke through her brothers' guard, looking as scared as Voldemort could manage while he was still inside her mind. As soon as she came out from behind Ron, Harry's head whipped around and he fixed his gaze on her.

'We saw your body,' she accused, pointing a quavering finger at him. 'Saw it. You didn't even breath for six days -- six bloody days! You're dead, damn it!'

(There. He should fall for that, I should think.)

Harry raised his eyebrows bemusedly. 'While I could easily fix it otherwise, should you want it so much, I am very much alive at this moment and would like to keep it that way.'

Ron stared. 'Who the bloody hell are you?' Ginny screamed angrily, struggling against the hold the Twins suddenly had on her shoulders. Voldemort thought the question was a little weak, so he made her add, 'And why are you doing this to us?'

'Hm?' Harry tilted his head to the side, apparently considering her. His eyes looked rather angry. It was starting to make Voldemort a tiny bit nervous, not that the Dark Lord would ever admit it.

Charlie's wand twitched just a fraction, drawing the bright green gaze for a fraction of a second. 'What my little sister meant to say,' he corrected, a touch of impatience coming through in his tone, 'Is, who the bloody hell are you, why are you pretending to be Harry, and why must you do it right now?'

Harry smiled. It was the Harry smile, the one that was uniquely and completely his own. No-one had thought they'd ever see it again. 'My name is Harry Potter, I'm not pretending to be anyone, and the only thing I'm doing right now is try to get on that big scarlet train you see over there so that I may attend my school this year.' He paused, looking around at the surprisingly silent crowd of people amassed on the platform. '... Is there a problem with that?'

'Stop it,' commanded the voice of Nymphadora Tonks, swiftly followed by her body, pushing through the crowd to the front.

'Yes,' agreed Hermione, less sternly. 'You're not even acting like the Harry we all know-- knew.'

Harry looked her up and down with an appraising, accusing stare. 'Did you ever know Harry?'

Ron flushed darkly, as Hermione paled. (Ginny paled, as well, but that was mostly because Voldemort hadn't realised anyone could use Harry's body to be this... this cold.) 'What does --' Ron started to snap, but he was interrupted.

'Enough!' yelled Charlie, beckoning with his free hand for Tonks to approach him. His eyes never left Harry, much the way Harry's were fixed on Ginny. 'You know what needs to be done, Tonks. Hurry, before this impostor does any serious damage.'

'Look, I am Harry Potter, Charlie,' Harry insisted, as Tonks Disapparated, obviously bound for Headquarters. 'The Real Deal. I swear.'

The muscles in Charlie's neck seemed to tighten, and all those that knew him saw it and became slightly nervous -- it was a well known fact that Charlie Weasley had a temper to equal the dragons he loved so much. Harry seemed not to have even noticed.

'Harry Potter,' said Charlie with extreme slowness, stressing every syllable individually, 'is dead.'

'Yeah,' agreed George, supported by Fred adding, 'We saw had--have proof.'

The Harry in front of them smiled blandly. 'Very good. But that, I believe, is the key.'

'Exactly,' averred Hermione with a perplexed frown, vaguely confused about why this man was agreeing that he couldn't possibly be Harry, even as he insisted that he was Harry. Besides, he was too old! 'Harry's dead, you're alive.'

'Quite alive. How very observant of you, Hermione.' Still with his infuriatingly untroubled little smile, the man who should have been a boy looked away from Ginny long enough to sweep the crowd with a glance. Something seemed to occur to him, and he brought his head back around to look the youngest Weasley in the eye. 'Mm, Ginny. Would you tell me, do I look like Harry?'

The girl swallowed slowly and licked her lips before answering, giving the Dark Lord in her mind more time to correctly word his response. It was an easy question, really... Except for being rather taller, broader, more well-built, and unbelievably paler, the man looked exactly like the Harry that had been lying in a casket in the cellar of 12 Grimmauld Place the last time Ginny'd seen him. Green eyes, black hair, thin face, lighting bolt scar for Merlin's sake, even the ears that Ginny had always found quirky somehow.

(Oh, how ridiculously pathetic.)

Then again, there was they way he looked, and sounded, about twenty-two.

'Well, mostly, yes, I think,' she admitted at length. The otherwise silent crowd seemed to murmur its collective agreement. But the three Weasleys with their wands pointed at Harry only gripped them all the tighter.

'Excuse us...' George interrupted before Harry could say anything else. There were decidedly hostile expressions on the Twins faces (and in the tones of their voices) as they spoke. '... but we fail to see the significance of this,' stated Fred.

Harry held up an appeasing hand, still disturbingly calm. 'I'm getting to that, if you'd let me.'

'And if we don't let you explain yourself?' asked Charlie, in a falsely speculative tone. Nervously, Hermione sent Ron a confused and pleading look. She didn't want to have to see them attack this person who was so very like Harry, even if he couldn't possibly be their deceased best friend.

Ron seemed to agree with her. This was painful enough, without it turning into a real fight. 'Charlie! Can't we just... take him to Professor Dumbledore, or something?'

'No,' snapped Charlie. He repeated his question to Harry. Clearly, he'd long ago lost his patience.

Harry seemed to consider it for a minute longer, the eyes of everyone else on him. At last, he said, 'If you don't let me...' He gave an unconcerned shrug. 'I'll do it anyway.' He gave no-one a chance to react, but continued on directly, 'I look like Harry Potter. I have Harry Potter's voice. I am Harry Potter. You've no reason to think I'm not Harry Potter. Well, apart from a body that you don't have anymore... But other than that, what's to say that I can't be who I am; Harry Potter?'

There was a renewed outburst of mutters and whispers in the crowd.

Hermione stared. 'But you've just admitted that Harry's dead and you're not!' she exclaimed in a high-pitched voice, unlike her own.

'Yes, I'm not dead -- not anymore.'

The whispers stopped so abruptly that some wondered if they'd ever happened at all. Every member of their audience wore very similar shocked expressions on their faces.

After several moments of this silence, a loud, sneering voice demanded, 'Is the im-Potty-ster trying to tell us he's been brought back to life? Doing the impossible again?'

'I've learned some very interesting philosophy recently, that could tidy up that comment quite nicely, Malfoy. But, I won't waste my time refining _you_,' Harry shot back calmly, not even looking in the direction of the blond Slytherin. 'In future, please at least pretend to have _some_ decency, and address me directly when I am within hearing distance, instead of asking your groupies questions that you can't possibly expect them to be able to answer.'

Draco Malfoy was almost too surprised to be furious, though the thought would doubtlessly occur to him later. Covering her mouth with her hands, Ginny started laughing. (Voldemort had never really like the Malfoy brat. Much too uppity and self-righteous.) Her shoulders heaved silently, gaining strength with every tic of the veins in Malfoy's temple and clenching of his jaw. She couldn't help herself. (Voldemort had been _dying_ for another chance to publicly humiliate one of the Malfoy males.)

'Stop it!' demanded Malfoy, staring at her, aghast. 'This instant.'

'Going to turn her into a ferret otherwise?' questioned Harry with a surprisingly believable air of innocence.

Ginny cackled in a most evil fashion. (Oh, yes, Voldemort had heard about that incident.)

Malfoy's brain had apparently remembered what it was supposed to be doing. 'Ten points from Gryffindor, Weaslette,' he ordered, puffing out his chest and glowering at her. Apparently, he thought that a large enough show of arrogance would make people forget that he wasn't allowed to take any points, and that the term hadn't officially started, anyway.

'Come on, for laughing?' protested Ron, grimacing in disgust. Someone in the crowd twittered, and Malfoy flushed. He was completely furious. Ron was sure they'd pay for this, with the Slytherin's usual vindictive style, over the entirety of the school year.

'That'll be ten more, for arguing with a prefect,' he said officiously.

Harry snorted in mildly-annoyed amusement. 'Don't make me laugh, Malfoy. How d'you plan on explaining the loss of those points to their head of house?' His manner was unquestionably patronising. And Malfoy unquestionably hated it.

He didn't get to respond, though, because Charlie had judged it time to intervene.

'Entertaining as this is, I'm going to have to ask you all to shut up.' He stopped for a moment, taking his eyes off of Harry for the first time since he'd arrived on the scene. 'Actually, if you'd all please continue to go about your business, that would be even better.'

There was a scattering of protest, particularly from those students whose parents had left already. No-one moved. The three adult Weasleys shot them all glares.

'You can't order us around,' a large woman reminded Charlie demurely. It was the same woman who'd spoken at Harry's memorial service, Madam Bones. Charlie's neck muscles, loosened slightly by the distracting verbal conflict with Malfoy, tightened again.

Smiling slightly, Harry interceded, 'Excuse me, Madam Bones. But I really think you ought to go along with his request.'

There was a slightly startled pause. Harry looked around and chuckled.

'I really think you ought to.'

Madam Bones stiffened. It was probably more a reaction to Harry's tone than his actual words, but either way Hermione felt certain that things were about to get ugly.

'Young man,' began the woman, in an unmistakable tone of authority, but stopped to stare at Harry. The green-eyed young man had just shaken his head and tsked.

'I hate to use force on good people,' he muttered, though he didn't appear to be directing the comment at any of them specifically. He sighed almost sadly. 'Very well then, if that's how you-- what was that?'

Ron and Hermione exchanged puzzled looks. Harry was looking over the pile of reporters, apparently listening to something. He stayed that way for several minutes, wand in his hand -- where had that come from? -- and attention raptly focused to his left. At first, for some reason they wouldn't have liked to admit, nobody had dared disturb him. A heavy, mostly uncomfortable silence had developed.

Then, Malfoy smirked. At last he seemed to have thought up something that Potter couldn't make everyone laugh at him for. 'Hearing things?' he suggested silkily, masking the sneer in his voice with surprising grace. 'There's nothing over there.'

Harry turned his head back. The outwardly pleasant smile with which he graced Malfoy would have sent chills down almost any spine but Voldemort's.

The Dark Lord was abruptly and secretly glad that the man was no longer looking at Ginny.

Harry sighed again, resignedly. The wand he'd been holding had disappeared again, but nobody would entirely trust themselves to say that it had gone. 'Oh well,' he muttered, as if he was expecting something horrible to happen. And then it did, and Harry had all his fun ruined.

There was a faint pop, which went mostly unheard by those in the crowd. However, everyone heard when Dumbledore spoke.

'Who are you?' demanded the Headmaster, approaching Harry through the crowd that hadn't noticed him arrive. 'What are you doing here?'

Harry smiled benignly. 'I'm Harry Potter. And I'm _trying _to get to school.'

'Very well. Mr. Potter,' said Dumbledore, accepting with very little fuss that it was indeed Harry Potter. 'If you'd come with me, please.' He held out one of his old, wrinkled hands. With a sidelong glance to his left once again, and a pointed look at Ginny, Harry took it.

A loud bang and a shower of sparks later, the two had disappeared.

There were a few minutes of confused, discordant silence, as everyone tried to figure out what to focus on, now that Harry was gone.

Ron, Hermione and Ginny were dragged to the Express by the older Weasleys (and Tonks, who had reappeared with Dumbledore). They settled into a compartment with Neville and Luna, where they spent the entire train ride speculating on the sudden and disturbing appearance of the man who looked so much like Harry.

Ginny was silent; Voldemort was absorbed in considering the implications that Harry Potter could come back to life.

**o.o.o.o**

Harry hated the hospital wing. Yet he somehow always managed to end up there.

This was a new record, though; the very beginning of term and he was already confined to one of the beds in the place. Nevermind that he was perfectly healthy...

He exhaled grumpily and shot a glare at Madam Pomfrey's office, but of course she wasn't there. She was in the Great Hall.

If he really wanted to, he could sneak out, as everyone was up at the Welcoming Feast, but he had nowhere to go. He could hardly go join everyone in the Great Hall, and he didn't know the password to Gryffindor Tower.

Were he not being kept in the hospital wing against his will, he might actually have enjoyed being there. After all, to him, it felt like he'd been gone for six years. As opposed to the six days -- er, one month -- that everyone else thought. Madam Pomfrey must certainly have been getting tired of him.

Oh, he desperately, desperately wanted to see people. Well, people who weren't gawking at him and accusing him of not being the person that he knew he was.

Which, at the moment, essentially meant Cain. But Cain wasn't at Hogwarts yet, and wouldn't be until midday September 3rd. Harry had to wait.

Harry had recently learned _how _to wait, and patiently too, but he still didn't like it.

**o.o.o.o**

When Ron, Hermione and Ginny entered the Gryffindor common room, the first thing they noticed was the twenty-two year old Harry lounging on the nearest sofa, apparently waiting for them. As they appeared, his eyes narrowed and fastened on Ginny. One corner of his mouth twitched upward, making him look rather malicious.

'Well, there you are. Hello,' he called as they approached. He appeared to only be speaking to Ginny. 'Miss me? Glad to see me back?'

While Ron and Hermione were plainly shocked by this cold treatment of their friend, and of themselves, Ginny affect a very badly done hurt expression (foreign territory for Voldemort, admittedly), even managing a tiny lip-quiver. '... Harry?'

Smirking not at all pleasantly, Harry got to his feet. 'Oh, let's not play games, hm? We're hardly children.'

'Harry,' interrupted Ron, startled. His hand was on Ginny's shoulder, comfortingly. 'What do you think you're playing at?'

'I wouldn't touch her, if I were you,' murmured the man before them. 'It would be a very, very, surprisingly bad idea.'

'Harry, what's going on?' demanded Hermione, clutching at Ron's arm because she didn't trust herself to not break down without the physical contact. 'Why are you acting like this?'

'I'll tell you later,' he said, without moving his eyes. It was obvious to them that what he really meant was, _Not in front of her_. Given that Ginny had been more a part of their trio in the past month than Harry had, this understandably made Ron and Hermione somewhat angry.

'Oh, come off it,' snapped Ron, moving closer to Ginny. 'What can you say to us that you can't say to her?'

Harry shifted his eyes just slightly and stared at Ron levelly. 'How long have her eyes been red, then?'

'Wha--' Hermione gasped, staring. Ginny had taken an angry step forward at Harry's words, and was glaring menacingly.

Harry looked remarkably smug. 'Oh, you mean you hadn't noticed?'

'Shut up, boy,' the red-haired girl hissed. Her lip was curled back in a sneer that her brother and his unofficial girlfriend wouldn't have supposed her capable of.

'Do you really expect me to listen to you?' inquired Harry almost casually. He looked for all the world as if he was having a conversation with no-one but an ordinary Ginny.

'You don't know who you're playing with, Potter.'

'No, you don't know who you're playing with,' Harry retorted. His eyes went cold and he got right up in Ginny's face. 'Leave, Tom.'

For a brief moment, Ginny's eyes glowed bright red, then they rolled back so only the whites were visible. She began convulsing, hissing angry things that weren't English. She bared her teeth, though she obviously could not see him, right at Harry.

'Ha-- what's happening to her?' Ron demanded, taking an involuntary step back. His voice was breathy and quick with shock. Beside him, Hermione'd gone pale and trembly. 'What did you do?'

Harry didn't answer. He grabbed Ginny's arms and forced her torso away, causing her spine to bend at an angle which looked decidedly unnatural. Voldemort spat out something that was probably a curse in Parseltongue.

'Tom,' repeated Harry, his tone impatient and startlingly angry. He tilted his head far to the side, like he was trying to get a better look at the monster within Ginny. 'Leave.'

With a last, all-mighty shake that should have snapped Ginny's neck, Voldemort was forced out. Her body went still, and her eyes rolled back down. She stared with them, unfocused, straight ahead. They started to water. She began shaking again, only this time not with the struggle to exorcise an unnatural being.

'H...Har...?' she gasped weakly. She couldn't manage anything else; her eyes slipped closed and she slid forward as her knees gave out. Though he'd been holding her arms, Harry still barely managed to catch her in such a way that he could actually support her weight.

Ginny's head lolled back, but it was apparent that she'd simply passed out.

As Harry eased her over to the sofa he'd been sitting on, Ron and Hermione approached them cautiously. Hermione was still trembling, clutching Ron's hand. Ron himself was greenish beneath his freckles.

Carefully, Harry pulled his arms from under Ginny's body and stepped away. There was a vaguely disgusted expression on his face as he watched her body settle in.

'What did you?' asked Hermione. She'd started looking around and was astounded to realise that no-one else in the common room had reacted at all to the incident. In fact, it seemed as if they'd not even noticed it taking place.

Ron was staring at Ginny, his forehead creased with obvious concern. 'Is she all right?'

'She's fine,' Harry assured them, but even his tone carried trace amounts of disgust. 'Her body's just gone into shock, that's all; it's not used to being under its own control anymore.'

He frowned down at the prone 5th year on the scarlet cushions. Then he turned his back on her, to face Ron and Hermione. His frown got deeper as he looked at them, observing the hand-holding and how very close together they were standing.

He did not look happy.

'You know, given how strong a reaction this is, I'd have to say that Voldemort'd probably had complete control over her for well more a week,' he said conversationally, despite the way he was looking down his nose at the two. He paused, then added, 'I wouldn't have thought a 70-something, nefarious and intrinsically evil spirit could so believably counterfeit the personality of a 15 year old girl.'

Ron noticed the rebuke without being told to look for it. Stung, he blurted without thinking, 'We've had a lot on our minds, all right?'

'And that justifies not noticing that your only sister had been possessed -- again -- by Voldemort?' Harry retorted scathingly. He scoffed, dismissing the paltry excuse. 'Oh, good show, Ron.'

Hermione, feeling guilty and very close to tears, stepped in before the two could start their row in earnest. She wanted some answers -- and besides, Ron would already be feeling badly enough about this, without Harry adding to his guilt.

'Harry,' she said forcefully, drawing his gaze. 'Shouldn't people have started rushing over for explanations by now? Why... why hasn't anyone paid any attention to this?'

Harry looked at her for a second. It seemed he was wondering why she'd needed to ask such a revoltingly simple question. Then he shrugged, utterly unconcerned. 'Just a little notice-me-not field around the general area of this sofa,' he muttered, as if he was suggesting that she should have realised that by now.

Her mouth falling open in disbelief, Hermione shook her head. She aborted the motion in favour of staring at Harry.

'Nonsense,' she whispered, a slight edge to her voice. 'A spell of that kind, strong enough to prevent people from noticing the expenditure of as much magical energy as your battle of minds with Voldemort took, would have to be...'

She trailed off. Ron blinked.

'... Wickedly powerful,' he finished for her, drawing her closer to his side. He looked around for himself, and quite clearly, nobody had noticed anything amiss. 'Blimey.'

There was an awed light in Hermione's eyes. 'Harry--'

'I don't want to talk about it right now,' the black-haired man cut her off. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Ginny was still breathing, then waved two fingers at the sofa in a gesture of clear dismissal.

A ripple of invisible magic passed through the room, and the noise from the rest of the common room went up an almost imperceptible notch. Also, people began glancing curiously at the small group.

'You guys are probably ridiculously tired,' remarked Harry, not at all concerned that he'd just done casual wandless magic. 'You should probably get some sleep.'

'But--' insisted Ron, who seemed bemused by this turn of events.

'We'll talk in the morning, okay?'

Harry sidestepped them smoothly and was out the portrait hole before they could stop him.


End file.
